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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.