[Taxacom] Race and taxonomy

[Karl Magnacca]

On Mon, October 6, 2008 7:29 pm, Richard Jensen wrote:
> I have become involved in an interesting discussion on my campus.  One
> of our faculty proposed a new course that included, in its statement of
> intent, the following clause:  "...race has no biological basis."  I
> took exception to this on the grounds that race is a legitimate rank in
> the taxonomic hierarchy and can prove useful when dealing with
> variability within species, regardless of whether the species are
> plants, fungi, animals, or humans.

There are multiple issues here.  Just because it has no biological basis
doesn't mean it's not useful.  It can be handy for categorizing
specimens that kinda-sorta look a little different, but grade into each
other.  It is, after all, possible that eventually a biological basis
may be found for them, such as a morphological character no one had
noticed before or genetic differentiation.  At the same, it's an
inherently fuzzy concept, so I don't think it's a legitimate rank.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Zoology
Trinity College, Dublin 2
Ireland