EVOLUTION OF PROKARYOTES - A KUKNIAN SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

The conviction, due to previous failures, that bacteriology and darwin ism were incompatible, has postponed the application of molecular phyl ogenesis to bacteria. But once introduced, this new field has led to a profound revolution of this science. A stable classification of the b acteria is at last possible; a new domain, the Archae, as distant from the Bacteria as from the Eukarya, has been discovered; noncultivable new species can be identified from the environment. It may even be pos sible to unravel the pathway of early evolution after the common ances tor. However, controversies on this subject are already disregarded by the new paradigm.