Speciies? you gotta be kidding.

[Rduke55]

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we knew they were part of an unseen ring before we discovered the other pieces.

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But whether or not the other parts of the ring are still in existence is the point here.

[luckyme]

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we knew they were part of an unseen ring before we discovered the other pieces.

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But whether or not the other parts of the ring are still in existence is the point here.

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Isn't than somewhat like claiming I have cousins until all my aunts and uncles die?
Or are you saying that 'ring species' means something like "a group of lifeforms that are closely related and all(?) the intermediate forms are concurrent?

I'm not following why the current or extinct status of the intermediates has any status on the relationship between two groups. We have group A and group B with all intermediates alive and we call it 'relationship R'. We sneak in one night and kill off all the intermediates ... why does R change?

luckyme

[luckyme]

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This is a topic that always sticks in my craw. People make it out to be that there's no way to separate these groups into any legitimate categories and that just isn't true with the overwhelming majority of animals (ring-species aside).

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This is more a tangent than a topic specific question, but is it a valid refutation point to 'set aside' the main evidence that shows the flaw in the original claim?

luckyme

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I think my contention is that it's not a flaw in the original claim. Evolutionary scientists accept that continuum, but for any time there are reproductively isolated groups that can be called "species"

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Besides the temporal chain of existing lifeforms what about
a) ring species
b) those species that are isolated ( whether geographically or such cases as 'day active' and 'night active' groups) but could interbreed.

I take Dawkins point as not denying the usefulness of it for discussion purposes but to remember it's a fiction -

" But the Salamanders Tale explains why this is a human imposition rather than something deeply built into the natural world. Let us use names as if they really reflected a discontinuous reality, but by all means let's privately remember that , at least in the world of evolution, it is no more than a convenient fiction, a pandering to our own limitations." ( last comment referring to our brains having evolved to see it terms of discrete categories).

luckyme

[Metric]

Next critical scientific issue up for debate: Is Pluto really a planet or not?

[luckyme]

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Next critical scientific issue up for debate: Is Pluto really a planet or not?

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These issues are only critical if people start to believe the categories reflect anything in nature. The planet one seems easy enough to relate to the 'driving age' cutoff so most people can deal with it.
The evolution/species one is harder to see and causes major problems with non-experts ( and perhaps even some experts) yet it is obviously no different in type. Creationists, for example, depend on there REALLY being such a thing as species.
Dawkins seemed to be trying to clear some ground for a better look and getting the 'planet' confusion out of the way of an examination of evolution.

luckyme

[Rduke55]

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Or are you saying that 'ring species' means something like "a group of lifeforms that are closely related and all(?) the intermediate forms are concurrent?

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That's pretty close to what I'm getting at.

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I'm not following why the current or extinct status of the intermediates has any status on the relationship between two groups. We have group A and group B with all intermediates alive and we call it 'relationship R'. We sneak in one night and kill off all the intermediates ... why does R change?

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The difference with the existing intermediates is that it allows gene flow between the different groups. Once they are gone then the two groups are isolated and really begin diverging due to genetic drift, lack of stabilizing selection, etc. that gene flow reduces.
This is not a trivial point.

[Rduke55]

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Besides the temporal chain of existing lifeforms what about
a) ring species
b) those species that are isolated ( whether geographically or such cases as 'day active' and 'night active' groups) but could interbreed.

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a) I already said ring species are an exception
b) not different species

[Rduke55]

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These issues are only critical if people start to believe the categories reflect anything in nature.

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But they do.

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The evolution/species one is harder to see and causes major problems with non-experts ( and perhaps even some experts) yet it is obviously no different in type.

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But it is.

[Praxising]

The species issue is longstanding but what is most interesting about the whole argument from the creationsist/evolutionist standpoint is who Linnaeus was and what his system was trying to illustrate and reveal:

(Below from here.)

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Linnaeus's Scientific Thought


Linnaeus loved nature deeply, and always retained a sense of wonder at the world of living things. His religious beliefs led him to natural theology, a school of thought dating back to Biblical times but especially flourishing around 1700: since God has created the world, it is possible to understand God's wisdom by studying His creation. As he wrote in the preface to a late edition of Systema Naturae: Creationis telluris est gloria Dei ex opere Naturae per Hominem solum -- The Earth's creation is the glory of God, as seen from the works of Nature by Man alone. The study of nature would reveal the Divine Order of God's creation, and it was the naturalist's task to construct a "natural classification" that would reveal this Order in the universe.


However, Linnaeus's plant taxonomy was based solely on the number and arrangement of the reproductive organs; a plant's class was determined by its stamens (male organs), and its order by its pistils (female organs). This resulted in many groupings that seemed unnatural. For instance, Linnaeus's Class Monoecia, Order Monadelphia included plants with separate male and female "flowers" on the same plant (Monoecia) and with multiple male organs joined onto one common base (Monadelphia). This order included conifers such as pines, firs, and cypresses (the distinction between true flowers and conifer cones was not clear), but also included a few true flowering plants, such as the castor bean. "Plants" without obvious sex organs were classified in the Class Cryptogamia, or "plants with a hidden marriage," which lumped together the algae, lichens, fungi, mosses and other bryophytes, and ferns. Linnaeus freely admitted that this produced an "artificial classification," not a natural one, which would take into account all the similarities and differences between organisms. But like many naturalists of the time, in particular Erasmus Darwin, Linnaeus attached great significance to plant sexual reproduction, which had only recently been rediscovered. Linnaeus drew some rather astonishing parallels between plant sexuality and human love: he wrote in 1729 how


The flowers' leaves. . . serve as bridal beds which the Creator has so gloriously arranged, adorned with such noble bed curtains, and perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might there celebrate their nuptials with so much the greater solemnity. . .

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These days, I am looking forward to a genetic classification for "species," a percentage of difference in the genome, which would not take into account such elastic properties as interbreeding.

(Date palm mutation studies should assist with this nicely.)

[luckyme]

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Or are you saying that 'ring species' means something like "a group of lifeforms that are closely related and all(?) the intermediate forms are concurrent?

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That's pretty close to what I'm getting at.

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I'm not following why the current or extinct status of the intermediates has any status on the relationship between two groups. We have group A and group B with all intermediates alive and we call it 'relationship R'. We sneak in one night and kill off all the intermediates ... why does R change?

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The difference with the existing intermediates is that it allows gene flow between the different groups. Once they are gone then the two groups are isolated and really begin diverging due to genetic drift, lack of stabilizing selection, etc. that gene flow reduces.
This is not a trivial point.

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That seems to be mixing issues of the past and present with issues of the future??
Killing off the aunts and uncles will make my cousins orphans and profoundly change the lives. It doesn't change anything about our relationship R.

You seem to be making the case that if we took a litter of puppies and totally isolated them into two groups on remote islands we have now created two species because they WILL diverge, drift, etc. Yet, in fact, nothing has changed, we still have 'a group of puppies from the same litter.' Grabbing two groups from a ring species ( which we are all temporally a member of) is an upscale version of that.

All life forms are related and flow seamlessly from one variation to another. 'Species' pretends there are natural joints where none exist. Dawkins thought experiment of backbreeding every 1000 years and never running into a 'new species' should erase all thoughts of boundaries as being 'real'.
Perhaps not.

luckyme