Are species real?

[Don.Colless at CSIRO.AU]

Anyone silly enough to get involved in this thread will soon find himself arguing about the meaning of "real" - and, in due course, about the meaning of "meaning". Beware.


-----Original Message-----
From:   Taxacom Discussion List on behalf of Curtis Clark
Sent:   Tue 4/11/2006 12:18 PM
To:     TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
Cc:	
Subject:             Re: Are species real?
On 2006-04-10 11:31, Richard Pyle wrote:
> I don't buy the argument that the
> existence of quantifiable character clusters means that species are
> "real" -- for either plants or animals.

If species aren't real, then how can phylogenies be real? And if
phylogenies aren't real, isn't evolution just population genetics?

--
Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona                 +1 909 979 6371
Professor, Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4062