Abstract
The measurement of biological forms has traditionally relied on metric measurements analyzed in terms of a suitable Cartesian space. Yet biological forms are not produced in such a framework and consequently there may be disjunction between analytical framework and biological process. A number of systems for the representation of form are examined and it is argued that all are defective, to one degree or another, at the level of congruence with biological process. Metric frameworks, it is suggested may not be sufficient and representations based on the concept of grammars and fractals are also briefly reviewed. It is concluded that representation of form in accordance with underlying structuring processes is still lacking.
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Read, D.W. From multivariate to qualitative measurement: Representation of shape. Hum. Evol. 5, 417–429 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435592
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02435592