Talk:Species concept

Talk
This subject is a fairly large one among biologists who study species, and it was really not represented in the species article. It is also one that lots of non-biologists wonder about sometimes, so it seemed like a gap that should be filled. Karebh 02:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would ask, so this page doesn't get pro'd, to difinity clean it up, expand it, and reference it to and through the species article. there is no reason that the subsection related to this subject in that article cannot be improved as well. --Tainter 02:39, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

what is pro'd? Karebh 03:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Species as categories vs. individuals
This sentence "One common disagreement is over whether a species is defined by the characteristics that biologists use to identify the species, or whether a species is an evolving entity in nature." is rather one-sided. The disagreement, which has largely died down, was over whether species are categories or individuals; advocates of species as individuals (notably Ghiselin, ca. 1974) argued that viewing species as individuals was necessary to view them as natural ("real") evolving things, whereas those who disagreed with Ghiselin generally also held that species were real and evolving, but disagreed about the necessity of viewing species as individuals for this viewpoint. The post-mortem on this disagreement would seem to be that species are by this point generally regarded as individuals, but no one's been able to figure out how this changes anything whatsoever. --Patrick Alexander —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.95.29 (talk) 06:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't, and it can't. Nature doesn't depend on the arbitrary labels that humans attach to things for their own convenience. A species is no more 'an evolving entity in nature' than a chair is 'an evolving entity in nature' - neither exists as an entity outside the pragmatic need of humans to use shorthand so as to be able to discuss anything, not just abstract concepts but even bits of timber nailed together to sit on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.238.154 (talk) 22:05, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Another meaning of "species problem"?
I just read an article in The Economist, which describes the "species problem" as "how did life's variety arise?" and treats it as a synomym for "evolution". So I googled and found pages (e.g., ) which suggest that Darwin used "species problem" as a code-phrase to avoid attracting premature and hostile attention to his developing ideas on evolution. My guess is that The Economist's writer researched Darwin but not the species concept and fell into a trap. But others may fall into the same trap or read articles which fall into it. So I suggest this Species problem should note Darwin's idiosyncratic use of the phrase - preferably alerting readers at the top and linking to a description of Darwin's use of the term.Philcha 11:04, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

A good point. I've made the change Karebh 01:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Use of "Natural Kinds"
Why does this article give any lip service to the phrase "natural kinds"? Isn't that an antiquated phrase from the religion of Christianity?

Also, this article is totally false in this sentence: "Under the first view, species appear to us as typical natural kinds, but when biologists turn to understand species evolutionarily they are revealed as changeable and without sharp boundaries." It seems rather clear to me that Darwin turned to "understanding things evolutionarily" precisely BECAUSE species are not clearly differentiated in nature! Therefore the logic presented in this sentence is actually backwards. Biology began to look at species evolutionarily precisely BECAUSE OF THE SPECIES PROBLEM. It is wrong ( and backwards ) to say the Species Problem arrises because biologists are looking at species evolutionarily.

I think this article should pay lip service to errors of Platonism. Because english speakers use the word "planet" then we somehow assume that means "planets" are easily identified around the sun. However, Pluto showed this to not be the case. Analogously, just because Linnaeus came up with the word "species", that somehow we assume that species MUST exist in nature! Worst yet, fundamentalist christians go onto to claim that "GOD CREATED SPECIES" and that they are in totally compartmentalized categories in nature. Darwin's Origin of Species showed this is not the case. The entire synopsis of Origin of Species is essentially this: "Species" do not really exist in nature, because we are really looking at a system of organisms that are always changing and always in flux. We do not observe in nature a static system created 6000 years ago. paros 23:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * " We do not observe..." - if I may, I'll shamelessly steal this phrase for future discussions. It is simply too good :) Dysmorodrepanis 19:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge, title, etc
As for an overview, one of the earlier volumes of the Handbook of Birds of the World deals with the important species concepts at length in the intro section. It might be available at your library, especially if it's an university library. You can also try a SORA search for terms like biological species concept or phylogenetic species concept. Dysmorodrepanis 19:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Merge some content from Species here - yes, 'support. BUT: move this page to Species concept which is the term used in science today: the problem is not how to define species - the problem, if any, may be to defend your particular choice of species concept in a particular case to your colleagues, but that's about it. A number of species concepts have been proposed that about cover all steps in the speciation process.

Some points
re: natural kinds

'natural kinds' turns up in lots of places. Philosophers find it to be pretty useful. Check out natural kinds.

Darwin would not have said that species don't exist. Also lots of things presumeably exist that are not distinct or that come into being gradually. e.g. instances of marriage, or fog etc. Much of the modern usage of 'species' is roughly synonymous with 'population' (although many species include multiple populations). At any rate, such populations are taken to be real,  even they are often not distinctly separate from other populations and even they their distinctness can change with time.

re: merge, title etc

'species concept' is not the the same thing as the species problem.

An important distinction that gets a lot of play these days is the difference between a concept of species, and the criteria that we use to identify or detect them. Just as the concept of neutrino has little to do with how we detect a neutrino, the same could be true of species. Some of the species concepts that have been proposed use 'concept' in a general conceptual sense, whereas others use it to mean a detection criterion. This is an example of the general phenomena in which cross-purpose disagreements easily arise over "species", and specifically it shows one way in which the species problem is larger than a debate of the best species concepts.

Karebh 17:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Bias
I'm not going to put any effort into arguing this but this article seems biased as heck. It reads like an essay on why you should believe in the word species. It totally skips any sort of discussion on the sort of things that makes the species problem a problem. (lions and tigers being able to breed, ring species, bacterial genetic transfer).

My guess is that there is a lot of anti-evolution vandals on wikipedia and someone misguidedly decided any sort of attack on species as discrete objects was a threat to evolutionary theory or something and neutered this article to not actually talk about the subject. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.166.224.172 (talk) 20:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

A pro-evolution vandal? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.238.154 (talk) 22:10, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

re Bias
Not sure what the bias problem is. The article discusses at some length the difficulties with the biological species concept - see paragraph beginning with "Mayr was persuasive..." If you want to discuss discreteness more, go ahead. I very much doubt that fear of anti-evolutionists has anything do do with the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Karebh (talk • contribs) 20:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Original research removed
I've removed the following text:
 * ===DNA Evidence favoring Realism===


 * Ultimately, DNA sequences determine species boundaries. If species are natural kinds, then there must exist a DNA mechanism maintaining the boundaries between species.[1] Gene conversion is such a mechanism. Gene conversion homogenizes DNA sequences within the gene pool of a species, thereby allowing the DNA sequences to clump together. In addition, there are mechanisms that allow DNA sequences to escape the boundaries set by gene conversion. These are the interspersed repetitive DNA that insert blocks of discontinuous non-homology within otherwise homologous DNA sequences. The blocks of non-homology interrupt gene conversion mechanisms and shield nearby DNA sequences from the homogenizing effects of gene conversion. By so doing, the interspersed repetitive DNA catalyze the evolution of new genes. The characteristics of DNA sequences and gene conversion form the physical foundation that humans observe as species.
 * [1]

Gene conversion is a known mechanism, and the (rather old) citation supports that, but the claim that gene conversion is THE mechanism that explains the existence of species is spurious, WP:OR (natural selection, ecological niches, all irrelevant, apparently). This theory is being built into wikipedia by a single editor, bolstered by self-published material such as Function of Repetitive DNA which I have just removed as an external link from Interspersed repeat, and which links back to wikipedia to bolster its claim to legitimacy. This is WP:FRINGE that doesn't belong in wikipedia. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Application of species problem to Wikipedia article, Dendriscocaulon
Without being explicitly named, the species problem has caused problems in writing lichen articles. There was some preliminary discussion at Talk:Lichen, and Talk:Lichen. An illustration of the problem is this Wikipedia article - Dendriscocaulon. Please contribute at the linked discussions, contribute at Talk:Dendriscocaulon, or by my making WP:BOLD (RS or not) edits to Dendriscocaulon. FloraWilde (talk) 14:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * , you have started a discussion (which is perfectly fine) but it is not the proper use of the  tag, which is for questions regarding editing and how-to on wikipedia (not garnering opinions). Cheers. Primefac (talk) 15:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I took down the help tag. FloraWilde (talk) 16:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

in Pluralism and monism section
"David Hull argued that pluralist proposals were unlikely to actually solve the species problem.[34]" sounds like it is a negation of a claim made by those proposing pluralism. yet i found nothing earlier in the same section that would suggest that such a claim was part of the "Pluralist" approach. 80.98.114.70 (talk) 19:29, 7 May 2016 (UTC).

Species concepts for asexual organisms
The intro mentions that species concepts that work for sexually reproducing organisms fail when applied to organisms that reproduce asexually. Then that issue is never addressed again, and the rest of the article talks only about sexually-reproducing species. Can someone who knows this subject fill in a section on species concepts that work for asexual organisms? There must be something, because bacteria do get grouped into species somehow. Thanks, Isomorphic (talk) 22:36, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this article lacks any serious examination of the species problem and the various species concepts applied in different disciplines and to different taxa. All my projects focus on species and speciation, so eventually, I will get around to expanding this article extensively. There are over a dozen species concepts, and asexually reproducing species fit in to a framework somewhere. Bacteria typically fall under the cohesion species concept outlined by Alan R. Templeton in 1989.  Andrew Z. Colvin  •  Talk  23:06, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 27 January 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) samee  converse  20:31, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Species problem → Species concept – Attempts to read an article on the topic of species concepts lands here, where it is is announced as a problem!? A concern about this title was raised 12 years ago, by and I think the page concept can be modified to frame this in terms of concepts and progression of improved definitions of organisms (not problems that dilute their meaning.. This page is essay-like in its style, and seems to support other content that characterizes the whole business of species as next to useless and a moribund system of nomenclature. cygnis insignis 06:54, 27 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's a messy essay. I've no objection to calling it a concept, but the whole topic is already covered more fully, with better citations and illustrations, at Species, so perhaps a simple redirect is all that is needed here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:51, 27 January 2019 (UTC)


 * You want to take it to AfD? cygnis insignis 14:58, 27 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I support the move as the literature generally uses this terminology. Eventually I plan to get around to writing an article on species concepts in their own right—in their own article, as the ones discussed at species are not so great. I would not support a redirect. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 23:59, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Me either. The article needs some love and attention, but some hacking of content from the other article [essay] species would make serviceable article until then. I expect with some closer attention to secondary sources, rather than serving an argument, there is a good article on the topic ready to go. cygnis insignis 04:48, 28 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

All of this is done better at Species
Well, I wasn't sure back in 2019 what this article essay was for, feeling that Species covered the territory more systematically, in more detail, and without the woolly-minded assertions of the form "Many biologists have claimed that ...[1][2][3][4][5][6]", assertions that mainly serve to demonstrate an editorial willingness to ignore the rules on original research, coupled with a reluctance to approach the matter encyclopedically and historically, and to cite actual page references rather than entire books. It's hard to see, too, how we can justify the claim that a book (Dobzhansky's, and undoubtedly a fine piece of work) is a "classic" by citing a page in the book itself: that actually seems perverse, or perhaps just careless - maybe the ref was meant for a different purpose, or reused, who knows.

Which brings me to my main point, which is that in place of this rambling, disorganized, and randomly-cited essay that wanders from history to historiography to uncited assertions of fame and dimly-related concepts like the Modern synthesis (20th century), we already have an article, Species, that 1) explores multiple "Species concepts", each in more detail than here; 2) describes the "Species problem" and gives multiple examples of real-world entities that are problematic for the idea of a species (microspecies aggregates, hybridisation, ring species); 3) examines how species change, showing as Darwin said that any static view is purely a matter of convenience, and 4) covering the history through Classical, Early Modern, and the modern eras in more detail than given here; and that is beside its coverage of taxonomy and naming, and practical implications. In short, at the moment this article offers nothing to supplement Species, which does a better job of covering Species concepts and the Species problem. Unless someone is now willing, and promptly, to address the serious issues that were already known back in 2019, we'd do better to merge the articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:03, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose merging Species concept into Species. Both history and philosophy of species concept are discussed in Species more systematically. HudecEmil (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Merging HudecEmil (talk) 21:18, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No disagreement found HudecEmil (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

HudecEmil (talk) 21:57, 22 April 2024 (UTC)