title: How stands the Tree of Life a century and a half after The Origin?
abstract: We examine the Tree of Life (TOL) as an evolutionary hypothesis and a heuristic. The original TOL hypothesis has failed but a new "statistical TOL hypothesis" is promising. The TOL heuristic usefully organizes data without positing fundamental evolutionary truth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Quadrangle A14, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Maureen A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: O'Malley
authors.forename: Eugene V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Koonin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001105:Archaea / Q000235:genetics; D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D005075:Biological Evolution; D018534:Earth, Planet; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013997:Time Factors; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics