Speciies? you gotta be kidding.

[vhawk01]

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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

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I haven't had much success, because I only get one of two types of responses: those from people like RDuke and Phil who understand full well the point I'm trying to make and take issue with the hyperbolic method I'm using to make it, and those who have no clue what I'm talking about and use arguments from incredulity or arguments from ignorance to dismiss me out of hand for being obviously incorrect.

I'm aiming for that sweet spot in between, people like, for example, you right before you read Ancestor's Tale, or something like that. Those are the only people I have much hope of getting through to about most topics in evolution anyway.

[Rduke55]

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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).

Of course species breaks are impossible to locate if you go over the entire time. You're right that the point is that with all the die-off there are reproductively isolated groups in existence that have different selection pressures and evolutionary histories because of that isolation.
Without considering these groups different species we wouldn't have near the understanding of evolution we do.

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You and I have had this discussion several times, and I get the impression you think I'm saying something I'm not, or asserting something stronger or more controversial than what I'm really trying to say. Basically, exactly what you've said here, thats my main point. If I can get you to admit that, over the span of time, we are all ring species (and in fact, ring life-on-Earth is probably better) then I have just completely demolished the microevolution/macroevolution argument. Of course, you don't subscribe to this argument, but pretend you are an average creationist. If, over time or geography or ANY barrier, we are in fact all just ring species, then there cannot be any mechanism that divides microevolution from macroevolution, and thus, although these terms might have some practical use, they don't represent any true boundary. Maybe a temporal boundary, but thats irrelevant to creationism.

Its an incredibly difficult and counterintuitive point, in my experience, to try to get people to see the beauty and wonder of ring species. Its really just about the coolest concept in evolution, IMO. And this is exactly the reason why.

I use inflammatory and potentially misleading phrases like "speciation doesn't really exist" or "there are no such things as species" and I think that raises red flags for you. I should probably stop doing it, but I have a specific audience in mind when I say things like that. My goal is to try to shake up peoples preconceptions and shock them a little bit, and get them interested in showing me how stupid and wrong I obviously am. Of course, when I say something like that to someone, such as yourself, who fully understands the concept of ring species and how that applies to all living organisms, it really just becomes an exercise in me backpeddling. But thats just because you don't labor under the misconceptions that I'm trying to confront, so the argument doesn't go as I've planned it.

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That's a fantastic post vhawk.
And I think you're absolutely right, same as in this thread, this kind of stuff

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I use inflammatory and potentially misleading phrases like "speciation doesn't really exist" or "there are no such things as species" and I think that raises red flags for you.

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is what I'm responding to. I think that that kind of hyperbole can be dangerous and misleading though.

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over the span of time, we are all ring species (and in fact, ring life-on-Earth is probably better)

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I agree with this.