Species, Genes, and the Tree of Life
- Creators
- Velasco, Joel D.
Abstract
A common view is that species occupy a unique position on the Tree of Life. Evaluating this claim requires an understanding of what the Tree of Life represents. The Tree represents history, but there are at least three biological levels that are often said to have genealogies: species, organisms, and genes. Here I focus on defending the plausibility of a gene-based account of the Tree. This leads to an account of species that are determined by gene genealogies. On this view, an exclusive group is a group of organisms that forms a clade for a higher proportion of the genome than any conflicting clade. Taxa occupy a unique position in what can be called the 'primary concordance tree'. But each gene has its own historical 'Tree of Life'. I conclude by arguing that both organismal pedigrees with their corresponding Tree as well as gene genealogies and their trees are objectively real and play important, but different, roles in biological practice.
Additional Information
© 2010 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of Science. Advance Access published on June 9, 2010. I would like to thank an anonymous referee from BJPS as well as Matt Barker, David Baum, Jamie Brett, Marc Ereshefsky, Laura Franklin-Hall, Ehud Lamm, Brent Mishler, and Elliott Sober for valuable discussion and comments on earlier versions of this paper. I would also like to thank audiences from the Bay Area Biosystematists, the Philosophical Pizza Munch at the California Academy of Sciences, the Humanities Fellows at Stanford University, and the University of Minnesota for providing feedback on talks based on this paper.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 35379
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121109-100432859
- Created
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2012-11-09Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field