BSC

[Doug Yanega]

Bill Shear wrote:

>Is anyone else uncomfortable with "evolutionary tendencies" and "biological
>fate?"  When stuff like this can be part of a supposedly scientific
>concept, I wonder where the Science Police that are usually so quick to
>jump on this list might be.

Actually, the species concept championed by Ed Wiley was something along
the lines of "distinct evolutionary trajectories" (I can't recall the exact
wording as published), and I know many folks gave him grief over that one.
He stuck to his guns on it, feeling that a somewhat ambiguous concept could
certainly stand to have an appropriately ambiguous definition.

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
                http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82