"The Coral of Life"
Last night, four Honors students and I (and Lily) went to the meeting of the Paleontological Society of Washington for Richard Bambach's talk on Charles Darwin's geological perspective.
One thing I liked about the talk was the suggestion by Darwin that "The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen." (Notebook B, page 25). This strikes me as quite apt: trees are alive not only at the tips of their branches, but also all along the branches, down to the trunk and the roots. Corals, on the other hand, grow atop a pile of dead material, representing those individuals and species which are in the past. I like it.
PS - While I was Googling up the exact quote, I came across this intriguing looking article about the history of the "tree of life" analogy. Wish I had time to read it...
One thing I liked about the talk was the suggestion by Darwin that "The tree of life should perhaps be called the coral of life, base of branches dead; so that passages cannot be seen." (Notebook B, page 25). This strikes me as quite apt: trees are alive not only at the tips of their branches, but also all along the branches, down to the trunk and the roots. Corals, on the other hand, grow atop a pile of dead material, representing those individuals and species which are in the past. I like it.
PS - While I was Googling up the exact quote, I came across this intriguing looking article about the history of the "tree of life" analogy. Wish I had time to read it...
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