Cladistism and "Eclectism"

[Tom Wendt]

Thomas Pape says:
"As T.DiBenedetto already pointed out: "we demarcate groups (species)
relative to other groups"."

If I interpret that correctly--and Tom's postings seems to say this--then a
species has no reality in and of itself, but only in relation to other
species.  (This would mean, as an aside, the the first "life" to evolve
could not be considered a species until "it" split into two species.)  I
know I'm old-fashioned, but I look at species as something real--fuzzy and
bizarre and complicates often, but real.  Someone will surely reply to
that:  they ARE real in the sense that they are a series of RELATIONSHIPS
between individuals, populations, etc.  That's fair enough, but then we
need not demarcate them only relative to other species, as argued above.

Tom Wendt