  We are facing a real challenge when coping with the continuous acceleration
of scientific production and the increasingly changing nature of science. In
this article, we extend the classical framework of co-word analysis to the
study of scientific landscape evolution. Capitalizing on formerly introduced
science mapping methods with overlapping clustering, we propose methods to
reconstruct phylogenetic networks from successive science maps, and give
insight into the various dynamics of scientific domains. Two indexes - the
pseudo-inclusion and the empirical quality - are introduced to qualify
scientific fields and are used for reconstruction validation purpose.
Phylogenetic dynamics appear to be strongly correlated to these two indexes,
and to a weaker extent, to a third one previously introduced (density index).
These results suggest that there exist regular patterns in the "life cycle" of
scientific fields. The reconstruction of science phylogeny should improve our
global understanding of science evolution and pave the way toward the
development of innovative tools for our daily interactions with its
productions. Over the long run, these methods should lead quantitative
epistemology up to the point to corroborate or falsify theoretical models of
science evolution based on large-scale phylogeny reconstruction from databases
of scientific literature.
