Darwin and the Tree of Life: the roots of the evolutionary tree

作者：Hellstrom Nils Petter^*

来源：Archives of Natural History, 2012, 39(2): 234-252.

DOI：10.3366/anh.2012.0092

• evolutionary theory
• tree imagery
• science and culture
• science and religion
• science and society

To speak of evolutionary trees and of the Tree of Life has become routine in evolution studies, despite recurrent objections. Because it is not immediately obvious why a tree is suited to represent evolutionary history - woodland trees do not have their buds in the present and their trunks in the past, for a start - the reason why trees make sense to us is historically and culturally, not scientifically, predicated. To account for the Tree of Life, simultaneously genealogical and cosmological, we must explore the particular context in which Darwin declared the natural order to be analogous to a pedigree, and in which he communicated this vision by recourse to a tree. The name he gave his tree reveals part of the story, as before Darwin%26apos;s appropriation of it, the Tree of Life grew in Paradise at the heart of God%26apos;s creation.

• 出版日期2012-10