Date:   6/16/2006 7:46:00 PM ( 18 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=414487

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Speciation is just another religious war.

While the discovery of cells and DNA have made it pretty clear that the question of what constitutes a species is not as simplistic as we had formerly assumed, Science isn't willing to give up its taxonomic system wherein we have all these differing species names but members of the same genus or even family are sexually compatible and might technically be just a single species.

Cats, for example, all seem to be able to interbreed -- at least, all the large predatory ones can, and all the smaller ones can, and some of the smaller can mate with some of the larger... which suggests that the only thing stopping a lion from mating with a house cat is the size differential.

Likewise, all the various dog-like species don't seem to have a problem mating with one another (except maybe the fox -- I can't find any reliable evidence of a fox hybrid, and I'm told [grain of salt and all that] that fox DNA actually has some significant differences from wolves and dogs).

So, it boils down to a matter of opinion as to what distinguishes one species from another. A lot of biologists want to use the biological method, but it's difficult to reconcile what genetics is telling us with what our history and language are telling us (i.e. lions are a different species from tigers, rather than simply a different breed of cat...), and our taxonomic nomenclature helps reinforce the old ways.

How do evolutionists define speciation? Whichever way is convenient to justify their belief in evolution, if you ask me. The preference is typically morphological, rather than biological, simply because the evolution they can prove -- micro-evolution -- is entirely supported by the morphological viewpoint of speciation.

 

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