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Colin Patterson FRS (1933–1998), was a British
palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
at the
Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...
in London from 1962 to his official retirement in 1993 who specialised in
fossil fish The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. It was during this time that the early chordates developed the skull and the vertebral column, leading to the first craniates and vertebrates. The first fi ...
and
systematics Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic t ...
, advocating the
transformed cladistics Transformed cladistics, also known as pattern cladistics is an epistemological approach to the cladistic method of phylogenetic inference and classification that makes no a priori assumptions about common ancestry. It was advocated by Norman Platn ...
school.


Education and early life

Colin Patterson was born on 13 October 1933 in
Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. ...
, London, the son of Maurice William Patterson (1908–1991) and Norah Joan (née Elliott) (1907–1984). After
National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...
in the Royal Engineers, Patterson studied
zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...
at
Imperial College Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cul ...
, London (1954–57). He undertook postgraduate research into fossil fishes at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...
and obtained a PhD in 1961.


Career and research

Patterson was one of the architects of the
cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived ch ...
revolution in the
British Museum of Natural History The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museu ...
in the 1970s. In addition to his many works on classification of fossil fishes, he authored a general textbook on
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
, ''Evolution'', in 1978 (and a revised 2nd edition in 1999), and edited ''Molecules and Morphology in Evolution: Conflict or Compromise?'' (1987), a book on the use of molecular and morphological evidence for inferring
phylogenies A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...
. He also wrote two classic papers on homology. Patterson did not support
creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism ...
, but his work has been cited by creationists with claims that it provides evidence of the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record. In the second edition of ''Evolution'' (1999), Patterson stated that his remarks had been taken out of context:


Awards and honours

*Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1993 *
Romer-Simpson Medal The Romer-Simpson Medal is the highest award issued by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology for "sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate paleontology". The award is named in honor of Alfred S. ...
of the
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world. Mission and Activities SVP has about 2,300 members inte ...
, 1997 *
Linnean Medal The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or (as has been common since 1958) to one of each in the same year. The medal was of gold until 1976, and ...
, 1998


Personal life

In 1955, he married the artist Rachel Caridwen Richards (b. 1932), who was the elder daughter of the artists
Ceri Richards Ceri Giraldus Richards (6 June 1903 – 9 November 1971) was a Welsh painter, print-maker and maker of reliefs. Biography Richards was born in 1903 in the village of Dunvant, near Swansea, the son of Thomas Coslett Richards and Sarah Ric ...
and Frances Richards. They had two daughters, Sarah (b. 1959) and Jane (b. 1963). He died in London of a heart attack on 9 March 1998.


References


Further reading

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Colin 1933 births 1998 deaths British palaeontologists Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of University College London