A Radical Solution to the Species Problem

Ghiselin, Michael T.

doi:10.2307/2412471

Cited by 868 publications

(407 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…16 The only thing these mechanisms need have in common is that they give rise to historically individuated entities (see Ghiselin 17 for a discussion of the ''speciesas-individuals'' notion), among which the possibility of reticulate evolutionary patterns is ended. In a sense, of course, this brings us back to reproductive isolation.…”

Section: What Do We Mean By Species?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But maybe there is still hope. If species, however formed, are indeed individuals, 17 perhaps systematists can usefully see species in somewhat the same light that judges see pornography, which they claim to recognize operationally even if they can't define it. Determinations are made case by case, weighing all of the facts and circumstances, whatever they may be.…”

Section: What Do We Mean By Species?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Madagascar's Lemurs: Cryptic diversity or taxonomic inflation?

Tattersall

2007

Evolutionary Anthropology

149

147

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We live in inflationary times. A quarter of a century ago, cigarettes were about $1 a pack in New York City, a bottle of Château Beaucastel set you back $15, and there were 36 different species of lemur alive in Madagascar1 (Table 1). Today the equivalent figures are $7.40, $95, and 83 lemur species2 (Table 1). The increase in dollar prices has a lot to do with the economics of growth, something that obviously cannot be sustained indefinitely on a finite planet. Is the recent inflation in lemur taxonomy any more secure? The question is all the more worth asking because this is no isolated phenomenon: Madagascar's primates have not been alone in multiplying. The same burgeoning of species names has occurred throughout the order Primates3, 4 and beyond,5 provoking both concern and energetic debate.6–9 Interestingly, this debate has largely unfolded among ecologists, conservationists, and other “consumers” of taxonomy; many “producers” seem to be content to generate new taxonomies with a remarkable lack of introspection, as if they were no more than passive consequences of more lofty concerns. And because the same causes underlie taxonomic inflation in Madagascar as elsewhere, this extraordinary island once again presents us with a microcosm of the larger world.

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Section: What Do We Mean By Species?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Do We Mean By Species?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Madagascar's Lemurs: Cryptic diversity or taxonomic inflation?

Tattersall

2007

Evolutionary Anthropology

149

147

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“…The well-known "species-as-individuals" thesis (the SAI or Individualist Thesis) was built on a philosophical foundation: individual species are unique historical objects, held together by theoretically important processes, rather than natural kinds (Gayon 1996;Ghiselin 1974;Hull 1976;cf. Wilkins 2007b).…”

Section: Theoretically Defined Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Hunting of the SNaRC: A Snarky Solution to the Species Problem

Mishler¹,

Wilkins²

2018

Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology

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We argue that the logical outcome of the cladistics revolution in biological systematics, and the move towards rankless phylogenetic classification of nested monophyletic groups as formalized in the PhyloCode, is to eliminate the species rank along with all the others and simply name clades. We propose that the lowest level of formally named clade be the SNaRC, the Smallest Named and Registered Clade. The SNaRC is an epistemic level in the classification, not an ontic one. Naming stops at that level because there is no currently acceptable evidence for clades within it, not because no smaller clades exist. Later, included clades may be named. They would then become the SNaRCs, while the original SNaRC would keep its original name. We argue that all theoretical tasks of biology, in evolution and ecology, as well as practical tasks such as conservation assessment, are better approached using this rankless phylogenetic approach.

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“…According to a tradition that goes back to Ghiselin (1974) and Hull (1976), species are individuals (tokens) in virtue of their historical contingency, while higher taxa are classes or types. An important motivation behind this distinction is that types are not involved in causal processes in the same way as individuals do.…”

Section: Tokens and Typesmentioning

confidence: 99%