The Species Are Related—The Question is How?
For thousands of years, people have looked at the life around them and tried to characterize all living species and to organize how they are related. One of the earliest-known theories was proposed by a man named Anaximander, who lived in ancient Greece around 600 BC. He proposed that humans must have emerged from some earlier, more primitive form of life. He reasoned that since human babies need to be cared for, humans must have come from an earlier, more capable animal.
About 150 years later, another scientist named Empedocles proposed that at one time in history, there had lived many strange and freakish creatures, in addition to those that populated the earth at that time, but that the strange and freakish...
is a (mostly) retired metallurgist. He received a BS in math and physics, before moving into materials science, then finishing with a Ph.D. in metallurgy. He is now spending some free time in exploring some of life’s generally accepted, but poorly supported ideas. For topics in biology, it helps a lot to have a wife who knows biology.
Get Salvo in your inbox! Elizabeth Siewertearned a BS in math and chemistry. She worked in the field of molecular biology at the University of Colorado for 15 years, carrying out research in genetics, where she learned a lot about biological systems. After her children were grown, she went on to earn a Ph.D. in biostatistics, thus combining her love for both math and biology. Her interest is in quantitatively modeling biological systems.
Get Salvo in your inbox! This article originally appeared in Salvo, Issue #71, Winter 2024 Copyright © 2024 Salvo | www.salvomag.com https://salvomag.com/article/salvo71/revisiting-the-tree-of-life
