I stumbled on this word while looking for something else. The definition given
in this book review is much wider than the one give in my dictionary:

In this exciting work on the cutting edge of
scientific knowledge, Henry Gee, Chief Science
Writer at Nature, tells the story of a recent
revolution in palaeontology. For the first time, all
of us can share in the wonder of a deceptively
simple idea known as cladistics, the science of
comparison. The cladistics revolution is
transforming almost everything we know about the
science of life in Deep Time--the billions of years
in which life has evolved on this planet. It provides
insights and solutions to questions about ourselves
ordinarily considered beyond the realm of science.