From his earliest student days through the writing of his last book, Charles Darwin drew diagrams. In developing his evolutionary ideas, his preferred form of diagram was the tree. An examination of several of Darwin's trees-from sketches in a private notebook from the late 1830s through the diagram published in the Origin-opens a window onto the role of diagramming in Darwin's scientific practice. In his diagrams, Darwin simultaneously represented both observable patterns in nature and conjectural narratives of evolutionary history. He then brought these natural patterns and narratives into dialogue, allowing him to explore whether the narratives could explain the patterns. But Darwin's diagrams did not reveal their meaning directly to passive readers; they required readers to engage dynamically with them in order to understand the connections they disclosed between patterns and narratives. Moreover, the narratives Darwin depicted in his diagrams did not represent past sequences of events that he claimed had actually occurred; the narratives were conjectural, schematic, and probabilistic. Instead of depicting actual histories in all their particularity, Darwin depicted narratives in his diagrams in order to make general claims about how nature works. The conjunction of these features of Darwin's diagrams is central to how they do their epistemic work.

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绘制进化图：达尔文树的案例

从他最早的学生时代到他最后一本书的写作，查尔斯·达尔文都在绘制图表。在发展他的进化思想时，他最喜欢的图表形式是树。对达尔文的几棵树的检查——从 1830 年代后期私人笔记本中的草图到 Origin 上发表的图表——打开了一扇了解图表在达尔文科学实践中的作用的窗口。在他的图表中，达尔文同时代表了自然界中可观察到的模式和进化历史的推测性叙述。然后他将这些自然的模式和叙事带入对话，让他探索叙事是否可以解释这些模式。但是达尔文的图表并没有直接向被动的读者揭示它们的含义。他们要求读者动态地与他们互动，以了解他们揭示的模式和叙述之间的联系。此外，达尔文在他的图表中描绘的叙述并不代表他声称实际发生的过去事件序列；叙述是推测性的、示意性的和概率性的。达尔文并没有描绘所有特殊的真实历史，而是在他的图表中描绘了叙事，以便对自然如何运作做出一般性的主张。达尔文图的这些特征的结合是它们如何进行认知工作的核心。和概率。达尔文并没有描绘所有特殊的真实历史，而是在他的图表中描绘了叙事，以便对自然如何运作做出一般性的主张。达尔文图的这些特征的结合是它们如何进行认知工作的核心。和概率。达尔文并没有描绘所有特殊的真实历史，而是在他的图表中描绘了叙事，以便对自然如何运作做出一般性的主张。达尔文图的这些特征的结合是它们如何进行认知工作的核心。