Piorokrat wrote:
>
>>
>>Uncle Davey wrote:
>>
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>So, for me, the best definition of a kind, true to both what I have been
>>>priviledged to observe of nature as well as in the Word of God, would be
>>>"the whole population of descendents of a group of animals or plants
>>>
> which,
>
>>>at the time of their creation, were able to breed and have offspring
>>>
> that
>
>>>were fertile."
>>>
>>
>>Sounds fine to me. Now how do you go about telling, in the present
>>world, whether two organisms belong to the same or different kinds?
>>Because all the evidence leads *me* to believe that there's only one kind.
>>
>>In particular, how do you tell that humans belong to a different kind
>>from the African apes?
>
> Well I've given you a philosophical answer. I didn't say it would be
> possible to check and know for sure exactly what is in the same kind.
Surely you have some idea of the limits, and some idea of criteria for
basing your decisions. I'm suspecting you think that humans and apes
belong to different kinds. I'm suspecting you disagree with my position,
which is that there is a single kind containing all life. I'm just
asking what basis you have for these opinions, if indeed you hold them.
> I can say that probably all the Corydoras are in the same kind, but for all
> I know there might have been more than one kind of Corydoras, or maybe the
> Corydoras are in one kind with the Aspidoras. I really have no way of being
> sure about it.
Do you have any way of coming up with even provisional hypotheses?
> But the same applies to the Linnean taxa, such as species, genus, etc. There
> has been to my mind, speaking really only from what I know which is
> ichthyology, no end of subjectivity in how these taxa are defined and
> applied. There are fish that have about 6 or 7 synonyms for their Linnean
> binomial. Have a look at Pseudorinelepis, for example. (I've got a female
> that is egg bound, and I'm looking for a male by the way.)
No surprise there. One prediction of branching evolution is that there
will be many cases in which species boundaries are unclear. And of
course the ranks of higher taxa, though not the taxa themselves, are
entirely subjective.
So, if Corydoras are all (probably) the same kind, I imagine (still
imagining, since you haven't committed yourself) you think that all
catfish are not one kind. Why? And why not all teleosts? All
vertebrates? etc.
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