3PHRASE [usually cont]走错路线;搞错方向;想法不对路 If you say that someone is barking up the wrong tree, you mean that they are following the wrong course of action because their beliefs or ideas about something are incorrect. 走错路线;搞错方向;想法不对路 [informal]
Scientists in Switzerland realised that most other researchers had been barking up the wrong tree.
瑞士科学家意识到其他研究者大多研究方向不对头。
4PHRASE 只见树木,不见森林;只重细节,不顾整体 If someone can't see the wood for the trees in British English, or can't see the forest for the trees in American English, they are very involved in the details of something and so they do not notice what is important about the thing as a whole. 只见树木,不见森林;只重细节,不顾整体
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a treeJoyce KilmerTrees
Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and ThornRudyard KiplingPuck of Pook's Hill