Gary, and EricS,
Well my vote is for Species, genus, etc., to be descriptive categories, levels of difference in the possession of traits. As soon as we put our foot down, there, we discover that species differences are NOT as well correlated with levels of genetic differentiation or with gene flow as our theories would require. “WHY are species?” then becomes a real and difficult question. Which, I think, relates to the question of why the genome is as modular as it is. I whose interest is THAT? I agree that cladistics, with its weird terminology that only a ideologue could love, is impenetrable. But I think we have to penetrate it. It is, after all, a descriptive method of arraying organisms on the basis of their manifest traits. It does allow us, for instance, to make a distinction between convergent evolution (where creatures that are fundamentally different look superficially similar) and divergent evolution (where creatures that are fundamentally similar look superficially different) because it can breath life into the notions of fundamentally and superficially. Nick Nicholas Thompson Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology Clark University <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2020 11:53 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Discovery of 'cryptic species' shows Earth is even more biologically diverse | Wildlife | The Guardian My late colleague Harold Morowitz once made a comment in an afternoon working conversation, which I found funny and fun. He said something like “I remember only 45 years ago when the lagomorphs split off from the rodents”. Kind of like Paul Erdos, the 4 billion year old man. Eric On Dec 27, 2020, at 12:44 PM, Gary Schiltz <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: When I studied biology at university back in the 1970s, my recollection is that most biologists in those days thought of species as an interbreeding population of individuals. Over the years, I've seen this definition give way more and more to defining species by genetic differences alone. Though I haven't been professionally a biologist for over 40 years (if ever), my life as a birdwatcher (and occasional keeper of coveted lists of species seen) has been affected by this shift. Based on genetic analysis (possibly tempered by studies of behavior, range, morphology), bird species are frequently "split" into two or more separate groups, either "subspecies", "races", or even full blown "species" (yay!! I've seen both those, add another species to my life list). Or the converse is also true - based on genetic analysis (tempered as above), ornithological consensus will deem two or more species to be merely different races or subspecies of one species, which we refer to as "lumping" (boo!!! lost some bragging rights about my life list). I asked an ornithologist friend about this a couple of years ago. I've always been a "lumper" at heart, even if it does result in my life list being shorter. To me, if two individuals decide to mate, and produce offspring, they ought to be considered the same species. Maybe adding the requirement that the offspring are themselves fertile and able to produce fertile offspring. My ornithologist friend seems pretty firmly in the camp that defines species by their genetics. I asked him if this wasn't rather arbitrary, and the only thing I remember him mentioning (which I never followed up on studying) was the notion of a "clade". I won't comment further on that, since I know absolutely nothing about clades. As a side note, we certainly don't classify currently living Homo sapiens individuals into different species, but then I don't know if the genetic differences among different races of people are more, or less, significant than that of some other animal species. This would, of course, be hugely (and justifiably, I believe) unpopular among us humans. I asked my parrots what they think, and they just chewed on the furniture more. I don't know if that signifies agreement or disagreement with my ornithologist friend. On Sun, Dec 27, 2020 at 11:54 AM <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/25/discovery-of-cryptic-species-shows-earth-is-even-more-biologically-diverse-aoe <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2fenvironment%2f2020%2fdec%2f25%2fdiscovery-of-cryptic-species-shows-earth-is-even-more-biologically-diverse-aoe&c=E,1,d8ssUiHUP3tLETjJmf50cEcV2upLKBND2qQAnwF__EwkcPtRZ4gDe8VeZoMCaUPYDxPsgQn0SuGFhkQvCAdrBxfgzxgbKmjGgeVhwULSGv75Zs7h4RD5BgK8B7U,&typo=1> So what IS a species? A level of distinctness of design, a degree of genetic differentiation, or an interbreeding population? And what happens to Darwinism when these things turn out to be not particularly well correlated, in the way that the signs and symptoms of hunger turned out to be not so well correlated as the Cartesian model would require? Steve Guerin: if you want to demolish Darwinism, here is where you start. 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