[Taxacom] (no subject)

[Richard Pyle]

This is EXACTLY why I think it's good and healthy to have this conversation
every so often on Taxacom.  And this is also EXACTLY the reason why I always
leave these conversations with a slightly better understanding of the issue
than I had at the beginning.

Don, your post and associated analogy are elegant, enlightening, spot-on,
and required FAR fewer bytes of bandwidth than my clumsy pontifications.  My
hat's off to you, sir!

Aloha,
Rich

> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of 
> Don.Colless at csiro.au
> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 12:01 PM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [Taxacom] (no subject)
> 
> 
> Peter De Vries (and others) seem to believe that a SPECIES 
> can breed in shallow water, bite humans, etc. But surely this 
> is just shorthand for the statement that MEMBERS of that 
> species breed in shallow water, etc. No matter how real, a 
> species has no mouthparts for biting people! For me, Aedes 
> aegypti is about as real (or unreal) as the Canberra Raiders 
> football team. These things are "clusters", sort of halfway 
> between individuals and classes. I wrote a paper on this once 
> , but can't give the reference (I'm away from my desk). It 
> was in Biology and Philosophy, a couple of years ago.
> 
> Donald H. Colless
> CSIRO Div of Entomology
> GPO Box 1700
> Canberra 2601
> don.colless at csiro.au
> tuz li munz est miens envirun
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu 
> [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Peter 
> DeVries [pete.devries at gmail.com]
> Sent: 25 January 2009 12:58
> To: tdwg at lists.tdwg.org; Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] [tdwg] Semantic Web: What is a species?
> 
> Richard you make several good points, and I should state that 
> I see species as more "real" thanot
> 
> 
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