Comments on: Go East, Young Neanderthal

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:00:43 +0000

Yeah sure, but …. were they different species or not!?!?!?

(As you imply, an almost senseless question when it comes to sister taxa anyway)

By: David MarjanoviÄ?

David MarjanoviÄ? — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:56:38 +0000

Oops: “and they all lead to different results, because they have nothing in common except the word ‘species’.” I’ll go to bed.

By: David MarjanoviÄ?

David MarjanoviÄ? — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:54:52 +0000

You can decide that this means that they were different species if you want. Or not. Either way you have a reasonable chance of being right. Or wrong.

Not even.

There are 147 different definitions of “species” out there, and they all lead to different results, except the word “species”. Depending on the definition, there are from 101 to 249 endemic bird species in Mexico, for instance.

Some, perhaps many, of those definitions apply to biologically interesting entities. But calling them all “species” is an exercise in philosophical nominalism.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:30:12 +0000

Anne: This is a repost. It is not new news. But, I beleive that just because something is a year or two old, it is not unimportant. I like picking out the stories form a year or two ago and reposting the ones that are still interesting. Lest we forget.

By: Anne Gilbert

Anne Gilbert — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:17:28 +0000

This isn’t exactly new news. I think I saw something about it back about the time the Nature piece was published. And there have been at least hints about this before that.
Anne G