Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Re: Another attack on Evolution



Maybe I'm resisting. Usually Wiki is intelligible. Below is the Mayr
definition:


"Since the advent of the theory of evolution
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution>, the conception of species has
undergone vast changes in biology, however no consensus on the
definition of the word has yet been reached. The most commonly cited
definition of "species" was first coined by Ernst Mayr
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mayr>. By this definition, called
the biological species concept or isolation species concept, species are
"groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population> which are reproductively
isolated from other such groups". However, many other species concepts
are also used (see other definitions of species
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species#Definitions_of_species> below)."

I think Wiki means reproductively isolated is (fertile) unissuable
mating and / or non voluntary mating.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species



bc, who didn't know specie is NOT the singular of species. (thought it
was double meaning word (homograph?).)



Hugh Haskell wrote:

At 23:12 -0800 1/21/06, Bernard Cleyet wrote:



cut



I was told different species can't produce fertile offspring. I
suspect in the course of change a time comes when there are two
lineages that, tho mating would be successful, don't mate because
they "look ugly" to each other (metaphor). At this point change will
accelerate to the point they are "really" different species.



I don't think this is either a necessary or sufficient condition for
defining a species. It certainly is rather difficult to verify if we
are talking about species definition from the fossil record, since we
have no examples that we can point to and claim that they can or
cannot produce fertile offspring.
I believe that I have read about organism that have been asserted to
be different species (a difficult task among closely related
specimens) even though they did produce fertile offspring.

I remember a novel from, I think, sometime in the 50s or maybe a bit
earlier, called "The Missing Link," in which a variety of humanoid
simians is discovered on Borneo, or somewhere like that, that seems
to be so closely related to humans that it was questioned if this was
the missing link between apes and humans. To attempt to settle the
issue, one of the scientists impregnates a female, who gives birth
and then the scientists kill the infant. They are tried for murder
and the argument they make in their defense was that the infant was
not a human, and so it could not be murdered. I don't remember how it
turns out. It's an interesting premise, but I doubt if it has any
scientific validity.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Never ask someone what computer they use. If they use a Mac, they
will tell you. If not, why embarrass them?
--Douglas Adams
******************************************************




_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l