Questioning the Tree of Life
1 October 2008 - 30 September 2010
PI/s in Exeter: Professor John Dupré
CI/s in Exeter: Dr Maureen O'Malley
Funding awarded: £ 71,619
Sponsor(s): The Leverhulme Trust
Project webpage(s)
About the research
The Questioning the Tree of Life (QtoL) network brought together biologists in a range of fields, philosophers and historians to integrate a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the conceptual challenges inherent in the Darwinian conception of the Tree of Life (ToL). The ToL represents the evolutionary relationships amongst organismal lineages as a single ever-bifurcating pattern. The primary objective of the network was to clarify the assumptions of Tree of Life thinking, examine the alternatives, and develop scientifically grounded, philosophical approaches to novel ways of thinking about and representing the evolution of organismal lineages.
