Talk:Tree of life (biology)

message: What is talked about in that article is not exactly new and is already included in the "Tree of life today" section. Do you feel that horizontal gene transfer could be somehow better discussed in this article? If so what do you feel should be included?203.213.71.221 (talk) 03:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled 

message: This article also needs a "controversy" section with 2 subsections.  There is a contemporary scientific controversy in which scientists such as Ford Doolittle dispute that we ought to be invoking a tree of life given that actually evolutionary history is (to a degree that is debate-able) non-tree-like due to processes such as lateral transfer.  This was referenced in a comment several years ago that cites a Guardian article:
: How about updating this with information presented here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/21/charles-darwin-evolution-species-tree-life  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikitimi (talk • contribs) 03:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy 

message: While I understand the motivation to promote the modern diagram to the lead (per "Images" above), I think the old version (12 April) worked better. The current lead points out that the "Tree of Life" concept was originated by Darwin, so it is entirely appropriate for the lead to feature Darwin's tree. It's true that someone who never reads past the lead, and who doesn't read the image caption (with its 1859 date) might be misled about current practice, but such a reader is not going to find the new lead very enlightening.
I am in favor of restoring the old version of the article, where the modern TOL diagram was associated with the corresponding text.
As a bonus for anyone interested, I'll recommend this texscience report (News of the Death of the Tree of Life Has Been Greatly Exaggerated) that has some great info and diagrams. It's perhaps a bit focused on a particular news event for "external links", but perhaps it could be added? Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you should keep the page as it is, because most people looking for the science of the 'tree of life' concept will turn up here. Andrewjlockley (talk) 18:03, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Restore 12 April 2009 version?

message: The original I edited was, in my view, too definite in describing the current position; I've added some qualifications. Hopefully there will be a consensus view soon and we can settle this section... Peter coxhead (talk) 18:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The tree of life today 

message: Please see  (the image is used in this article, but the other one mentioned on that talk page might be considered a better version). - dcljr (talk) 07:29, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree it's better; I've used it as a replacement. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Darwin's first tree of life 

message: I don't see the logic behind the statement that Hitchcock's tree diagrams "were not real evolutionary trees, because Hitchcock believed that a deity was the agent of change." Lots of people believe in the evolution of species from a common ancestor while also believing that a deity is controlling or influencing the process. "Biological evolution" is not synonymous with "Biological evolution by non-teleological natural selection." 206.208.105.129 (talk) 20:37, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hitchcock's Tree 

message: There is a substantive question about the scope of this article.  This page is titled "Tree of Life (biology)", whereas "tree of life" is also used, for instance, as a reference to the tree of knowledge in the garden of eden (Christian bible).  This is why there is a disambiguation page for "tree of life".  
There has been some disagreement about this on the talk page, with some folks complaining that the historical material is inappropriate.  I'm not going to take a position on that, but I think the article needs to be more clear, using consistent language and section headings.  
I'm going to put this in the form of some questions for those who are interested in offering an opinion.  
# should the main focus of this article be on the contemporary meaning of "tree of life" in biology?  
# is "a broad phylogeny of species" the *only* contemporary meaning, or are there other contemporary meanings?   
# how much attention should be given to taxonomic trees of life, as distinct from phylogenetic trees of life? 
# should this article address uses of "tree of life" to refer to the connectedness of life where this is not proposing a concrete hierarchy of living things? 
As a scientist indirectly involved with the "tree of life" project, I can attest that contemporary usage is roughly as follows.  THE tree of life is a hypothetically comprehensive tree, covering all the millions of species that exist.  Some people want to include extinct species as well (the tree of all things that have lived).  Any attempt to produce a broad or comprehensive phylogeny qualifies as *A* tree of life.   Woese's rRNA tree with 3 "urkingdoms" (later called "domains"), or the ToLWeb tree, are trees of life.  The number of published trees of life is not huge.  Haeckel's tree is a tree of life. 
However, that meaning only became common since about ~2000 AD as the result of NSF's "assembling the tree of life" project.  Before that, the tree of life might have referred to a taxonomic tree, i.e., a hierarchy of relationships of similarity without any explicit assumption that the relationships are evolutionary.   And even before that, people were using "tree of life" as a metaphor to refer to the connectedness of life, without necessarily thinking about hierarchy in the way that we do today.    — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dabs (talk • contribs) 15:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is the proper scope of this article 

message: In the year 1837, Darwin entered his sketch into his notebook. But since when is the copy of that sketch available to the public? What is the first publishing date e.g. of a facsimile in a magazin or some other prined publication? Did Darwin himself show it (or a facsimile) to the public?
The image is very popular, but I don't find the publishing date given together with any reproduction of that sketch. It woud be interesting to specify that date in the article --DL5MDA (talk) 18:44, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The essential answer is that we don't know, because as far as I can find the question of the first publishing date of a facsimile hasn't been discussed by a published source. It does go back at least as far as De Beer's 1960 paper, see pp. 45–46. You could try hunting elsewhere on Darwin Online, perhaps starting with Freeman. . . dave souza, talk 07:53, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  When was the sketch published after 1837? 

message: The text "have the ability to transfer genetic information between unrelated organisms through horizontal gene transfer" is inaccurate: horizontal gene transfer occurs all the time between all sorts of organisms. Maybe "tends more than most organisms"? 120.18.115.178 (talk) 06:34, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what "most" would imply but we needn't go there. I've tweaked the text. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  At least an inaccuracy should be corrected?