Biology and Philosophy 33 (5-6):31 (2018)
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Common ancestry is a central feature of the theory of evolution, yet it is not clear what “common ancestry” actually means; nor is it clear how it is related to other terms such as “the Tree of Life” and “the last universal common ancestor”. I argue these terms describe three distinct hypotheses ordered in a logical way: that there is a Tree of Life is a claim about the pattern of evolutionary history, that there is a last universal common ancestor is an ontological claim about the existence of an entity of a specific kind, and that there is universal common ancestry is a claim about a causal pattern in the history of life. With these generalizations in mind, I argue that the existence of a Tree of Life entails a last universal common ancestor, which would entail universal common ancestry, but neither of the converse entailments hold. This allows us to make sense of the debates surrounding the Tree, as well as our lack of knowledge about the last universal common ancestor, while still maintaining the uncontroversial truth of universal common ancestry.
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DOI | 10.1007/s10539-018-9641-3 |
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References found in this work BETA
Evidence and Evolution: The Logic Behind the Science.Elliott Sober - 2008 - Cambridge University Press.
It’s the Song, Not the Singer: An Exploration of Holobiosis and Evolutionary Theory.W. Ford Doolittle & Austin Booth - 2017 - Biology and Philosophy 32 (1):5-24.
Microbiology and the Species Problem.Marc Ereshefsky - 2010 - Biology and Philosophy 25 (4):553-568.
The Future of Systematics: Tree Thinking Without the Tree.Joel D. Velasco - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (5):624-636.
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Citations of this work BETA
The Future of Systematics: Tree Thinking Without the Tree.Joel D. Velasco - 2012 - Philosophy of Science 79 (5):624-636.
Reconstructing the Last Common Ancestor: Epistemological and Empirical Challenges.Arturo Becerra, Edna Suárez-Díaz & Amadeo Estrada - 2022 - Acta Biotheoretica 70 (2).
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