A Method and Its Principles for Rapidly Deducing and Predicting Organismal Evolutionary Pathways Using Macroscopic Biological Traits

This paper presents a method for rapidly reconstructing biological evolutionary pathways by analyzing macroscopic organizational structures such as limbs, skeletons and tentacles as well as their mechanical stress states. This method can also make continuous predictions on the future evolutionary trends of organisms. Combined with fossil evidence, this approach is adopted to deduce the major evolutionary routes of deuterostomes and mollusks. It is also applicable to reconstruct the evolutionary paths of many other organisms. Serving as an important supplement to epigenetics, this method can offer further interpretations for phenomena including convergent evolution.