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Editing and Evolution
Author(s) -
Robins William
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
literature compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.158
H-Index - 4
ISSN - 1741-4113
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00391.x
Subject(s) - sketch , cladistics , philology , convergence (economics) , cognitive science , evolutionary biology , computer science , epistemology , biology , psychology , sociology , philosophy , phylogenetics , gender studies , biochemistry , algorithm , feminism , economics , gene , economic growth
Both textual editors and evolutionary biologists investigate the process of “descent with modification,” whether of how a text has been copied from one manuscript to another or of how a species of organisms has evolved into new species. In the last two decades there has been an interesting convergence of these fields, especially as some editors have harnessed biological methods of “cladistics” to aid their work in textual “stemmatics.” This article provides a historical sketch of the main similarities and differences between the genealogical methods in philology and biology from their emergence in the nineteenth century up to the present day.