Phenetic techniques were also employed effectively to test S. J. Gould's claim that morphological disparity among Burgess Shale arthropods is greater than that between living forms. Gould's claim was confirmed even though it was his opponents who were doing the testing.

In the future, it may be used in conjunction with molecular evidence to construct what Darwin calls the natural system, in which both propinquity of descent and degrees of modification are used to rank taxa.