[Taxacom] Are species real? Doesn't matter.

[J. Kirk Fitzhugh]

If cladograms are graphic representations of 
explanatory hypotheses, accounting for shared 
similarities, and we apply formal names to some 
of those hypotheses, then why must 'species' only 
be considered classes or individuals? If species 
are themselves explanatory hypotheses, then 
neither the class nor the individual concept is appropriate.

Names such as 'Homo' and 'Hominidae' refer to 
explanatory hypotheses, not classes. Why then 
must 'Homo sapiens' be relegated to being a 
class, when in fact the name refers to the past 
events that account for the individual organisms 
observed now, i.e., a hypothesis? It seems that 
the action of giving the name 'Homo sapiens' is 
no different than giving the names 'Homo,' 
'Hominidae,' 'Chordata,' etc.  All are 
placeholders for different hypotheses that trace 
back to the observed organisms for which we seek understanding.

Kirk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J. Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D.
Curator of Polychaetes
Invertebrate Zoology Section
Research & Collections Branch
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90007

Phone:   213-763-3233
FAX:       213-746-2999
e-mail:   kfitzhug at nhm.org
http://www.nhm.org/research/annelida/staff.html
http://www.nhm.org/research/annelida/index.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At 06:39 AM 6/1/2007, you wrote:

>A 10:42 31/05/2007 -1000, Richard Pyle wrote :
>
> >Yes, I do view species as classes, rather than individuals.
> >(...)
> >
> >I still don't buy the "species as hypothesis" argument.
> >(...)
> >
> >and we still have several constructs of "populations" to go through before
> >we get to
> >"species".
> >(...)
> >
> >Many of these points (e.g., species as classes, rather than individuals)
> >have been on this list before, and should be somewhere in the archives.
>
>yes they are - so, just a reminder of some suggestions of mine (much in
>agreement with, and possibly complementary to Richard Pyle's ones):
>
>- species are not biological "individuals" from a materialist point of
>view: they are definitely not consistent material systems (not even
>populations, as frequently conceived) - they are materially "divided"
>instead, into a lot of spatially, temporally and biologically disconnected
>individuals
>- so-called "species as historical individuals" can't be anything but
>classes, i.e. historically meaningful concepts for the evolutionary
>biologist and the phylogenetic systematician
>- classes are concepts, "clusters" can be material systems (physically
>connected aggregates of things) or concepts (pseudo classes of some kind)
>
>- one can avoid confusing "real" (materially) with "biologically meaningful
>/ useful to the scientist"
>- one can avoid confusing "existing" (as a material system) with "true" or
>"likely" (as a historical sketch of events - see Fitzhugh for clades as
>historical explanation)
>
>so, 'it' really doesn't matter a bit, by any means... two cents more to the
>'classes pot'
>(but I just picked them in this very pot  ;-)  - e.g. Mahner and Bunge 1997
>on Systematics)
>
>best,
>Pierre
>
>
>Pierre Deleporte
>CNRS UMR 6552 - Station Biologique de Paimpont
>F-35380 Paimpont   FRANCE
>Téléphone : 02 99 61 81 63
>Télécopie : 02 99 61 81 88
>
>
>
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