[luckyme]

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Finally, somebody who seems to agree with me that species ( like most human categories) don't really exist and often just muddy up ones thinking.
Ran across this in Dawkins, The Ancestors Tale -

"If only all the intermediates were still alive, attempting to separate dogs from cats would be a doomed enterprise, as it is with the salamanders and the gulls." ( He had given an example of rings species issues using them.).

He uses a neat thought experiment - move back in time 1000 years at a pop. Each time take a breeding age male or female from the time you are in back one hop. They will be breedable with the older group. Now take a new one from there and hop back another 1000 years and they will be breedable. You'll eventually reach a point where you can't breed with the locals but your current 1000 year co-traveller will be able to. Did you just bump into a new species?

luckyme

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I agree with you, and I've actually used this exact same Ancestor's Tale argument no less than half a dozen times here. Its one of my favorites.

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Well, I hope you've done better with it. I haven't been able to get past the divorce of 'species' from one of it's better known possible conditions ... interbreeding constraint. If that were all that the use of 'species' entailed, a specific constraint label, what'd be to discuss?

gluck on the 7th try, luckyme