Taxacom: Fuzzy logic and taxonomy

[Stephen Thorpe]

 I'm not sure if fuzzy logic is really relevant here? It is more about the need to abandon the idea that species are somehow equally objective robust entities out there in the world, just waiting for us to discover and name them. Many species are sufficiently clear cut from their nearest known relatives to approximate to such clear cut objective entities. Many species are not like this and so require subjective and arbitrary boundaries to be imposed by taxonomists. The problem is that there will be more than one way to impose such subjective boundaries, and each option is equally "correct", but gives different answers to the question "is this the same species as that?" There are many ways to cut a pie, but all options are equally tasty! The main problem in taxonomy is deciding whether or not two allopatric populations are sufficiently diverged to be counted as two distinct species.Traditionally, at least in entomology, one looks specifically for differences in genitalia, based on the traditional biological species concept, which is based on reproductive isolation. At the end of the day, though, the task is simply to describe biological diversity, so there really isn't much or even any real difference in saying that allopatric populations A and B are the same species with slightly different genitalia, or different species with slightly different genitalia. The main thing is just to document the difference in genitalia which corresponds to the different populations. Conservationists might have a problem, if what they want to do is conserve species, but, at the end of the day, all they need to do is prioritise the conservation of population A, say, on a scale of how different the genitalia are to population B. They don't need to worry about whether A and B are the same species or not. Just worry about it more, the more different it is to its nearest relatives.
Stephen
    On Wednesday, 2 August 2023 at 08:08:22 pm NZST, Valentina Todisco via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:  
 
 Dear colleagues,

I would like to share with you this comment recently published in BJLS,
hoping that it would be of interest:

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1093%2Fbiolinnean%2Fblad097&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C928b1d37144b42f84a6b08db9337187a%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638265637081973574%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=wdSTsBhew0UccoGJEKdVm4%2FUl29Zcz49xdwuhyyuod8%3D&reserved=0

Sincerely,
Valentina Todisco
University of Salzburg
Hellbrunnerstraße 34, 5020
Salzburg, Austria
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