1
$\begingroup$

Seems like many of the famous evolutionary biologists are somehow related to each others. For example (and I might be mistaken), Ronald A. Fisher was mentored by a descendent of Charles Darwin. Joe Felsenstein did undergraduate research with James Crow and wrote his doctoral thesis under Richard Lewontin. Muller was mentored by Huxley, friend of Darwin. Brian Charlesworth was mentored by John Maynard Smith who was himself mentored by J.B.S Haldane.

Is there anyone who is crazy enough and interested in the history of evolutionary biology enough to draw a network of relationships between most famous evolutionary biologists since Charles Darwin?

An arrow between any two evolutionary biologist might represent a relationship of the kind family, PhD supervision or friendship. Of course there is no limit to the number of famous people to include and there is no good distinction of who should be included. But a network of the 20 (or 50 if you feel courageous) most famous evolutionary biologist would be awesome!

$\endgroup$
6
  • $\begingroup$ I am not totally sure this question will be accepted on this site but I think it might fall within the history tag. Also, the question has the default to not have a definitive answer and to ask for creating something rather than for pure knowledge. $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    May 8, 2015 at 18:14
  • $\begingroup$ I bet you could make one using cited/co-authored papers! I'm not sure you could derive specific relationships from that, though. I don't really think this question is really within the scope of this site, though. $\endgroup$
    – Luigi
    May 8, 2015 at 18:25
  • $\begingroup$ This is a really fun question, but probably not within the scope of the site. I'm not where else on the internet would be a good place to ask it, but I sure would like to see it, though! $\endgroup$
    – C_Z_
    May 8, 2015 at 18:27
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your comment. Following CactusWoman comment: if the post is estimated to be off-topic here. I would love to know where you think I could ask for this question. Do you think they are going to accept such question on history.SE? $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    May 8, 2015 at 18:28
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ It also falls under the six degrees theory. There are very few evolutionary biologists in the world, of course they're all related somehow or other. This goes double for the evolutionary biologists of a century ago. There were very few of them so of course, by definition, they mentored each other. $\endgroup$
    – terdon
    May 9, 2015 at 9:23

1 Answer 1

3
$\begingroup$

Maybe not exactly what you are searching for, but you should look at the evolutionary biology version of Academic tree. This provides family-tree type relationships between researchers, but mostly (only?) of supervisor-student relationships.

As an example, the tree for Joe Felsenstein includes links to e.g. Dobzhansky, Lewontin and Sewell Wright. You should be able to find much of the information you are looking for at this site.

Here is a small cutout of Joe Felsenstein's tree, just as an example:

enter image description here

$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ Wow this is so cool! Exaclty what I was looking for. As you said almost everything is about supervisor-student relationships but this is really nice. +1 $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    May 8, 2015 at 21:05
  • $\begingroup$ You can add yourself as well - just create a user account. $\endgroup$ May 8, 2015 at 21:06

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .