Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!decwrl!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: Species Message-ID: <123@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Sep-84 11:30:24 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.123 Posted: Fri Sep 14 11:30:24 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 25-Sep-84 02:40:50 EDT References: <283@uwmacc.UUCP> Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 19 It figures that creationists would want scientists to define "species" to be to be something with a real existence. That's exactly the sort of reification (pretending that an idea has a real existence) that they commit with their ideas of God. The purpose of a classificatory system is to provide convenient categories for the use of the classifiers. For example, "clean" and "unclean" animals under Mosaic law. Scientific classifications are the same, with the purpose of reflecting phylogeny (the relationships by descent) at the higher levels (such as genus, family, order, phylum, etc.) and ordering individuals into groups with similar properties (such as behaviors, interbreedability, food items, etc.) at the lower levels (species, subspecies, etc.) Debate about the meaning of the term "species" and other taxa concerns which criteria are most useful in the classification. No single set of criteria will both be without conflicts of criteria, and sufficiently versatile to deal with the continuity of variation of characteristics that appears in some groups.