On Dec 27, 2020, at 12:44 PM, Gary Schiltz <[hidden email]> 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 <[hidden email]> wrote:- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .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.
Nick
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