This article has a discussion of various species concepts. The ESC is the Evolutionary Species Concept, which is similar to but not exactly the same as the PSC.
Personally, I favor the BSC. However, although we are certain our African bird is a good PSC species, we don’t know if it is a good BSC species.
It depends on how the characteristics changed and how they were correlated with one another. If, say:
The northern population were all large, light, and short-tailed, and these characters did not vary systematically over a 1000 km of this form’s range
The southern were all small, dark, and long-tailed, and these characters did not vary over 1000 km of this forms range
In the area where these two met, there was a hybrid zone of perhaps 50 km where these two forms freely interbreed and produced intermediates.*
Then, according to the BSC, they would be subspecies of the same species. According to the PSC, they would be separate species, since the PSC doesn’t care about interbreeding. By the PSC, the two forms would be “diagnosable” across most of their ranges and thus be good PSC species.
If, however, the characters varied gradually over the range of the species, so that there was no point at which one could draw a clear demarcation between the populations, then by modern standards they would not be accepted as subspecies by either the BSC or PSC.
*If hybridization occurred but was rare or limited in this zone, the BSC would consider them to be full species.
Colibri’s write up about subspecies is pretty darn good. For other reasons, scientists no longer use the term “race” in application to Humans. And “breed” is right out. Population is the now accepted term. The old “races” have been shown to have very little to do with genetics- those dark skinned people once lumped together as “Negroid” are members of many different Populations anyway- the Australian Abo is no more part of the same Population of a Masai than I am. The Australian Aborigines are a good example of a Population, BTW. If you think of a Population as a Tribe or group of tribes you will come close, but that’s not really right, either (some Tribes are indeed Populations, true, but not all, and the lines aren’t always along tribal borders, either)
Other that various pre-historic Humans*, we also don’t split Humankind into Subspecies either. True, extreme “splitters” could possibly argue that some Populations are Subspecies, but in general, biologists “don’t go there”. The defintion of a subspecies is rather fuzzy and not 100% agreed upon, and Humans move around a lot, anyway.
*and there is disagreement even there. Is Neanderthal Man Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis? Or Homo Neanderthalis? Species or Sub-species? Maybe even neither?
DrDeth, Colibri, your two are my new heroes. I’m definitely getting my nickel’s worth out of this.
So, DrDeth, if I understand correctly, the term Population has supplanted the term race in describing Human Beings - at least as far as the strict sciences go, correct?
How far behind, in your opinion, will social scientists be before they are willing to recognize this?
Most anthropologists say “species”, by quite a large margin. However, at the very least Neanderthals would qualify as a subspecies. The line leading to them and the line leading to us split about 500,000 years ago, and the two populations were probably isolated from each other to a large extent. That would be plenty of time to earn the subspecies status.
(And you’d write it neanderthalensis, whether as a species or subspeicies name.)
It is not so much that one has supplanted the other as that we recognize that “race” has no useful meaning (as it originally was used to describe a great many diverse groups based on some arbitrarily chosen similarities) while “population” identifies much smaller groups for which we can assemble actual facts regarding genetics, descent, kinship, etc. For example, the discussions about better athletic performance by “race” generally includes a mention of the Kenyan marathon runners, most (all?) of whom are actually from a smaller fairly well-defined population of people known as Kalenjin. There is no legitimate way to equate this specific ethnic group (population) of fewer people than live in Chicago with a “race.”
The one term did not replace the other so much as the discussion moved to a better and more accurate way to examine issues.
tomndebb has pretty well summed up the situation as far as biology goes. Plants and animals in general can be talked about in terms of populations; in some cases the kind of variation shown between some populations can be categorized in terms of subspecies (or race, in the technical biological sense). Humans do not show the kind of variation that merits recognition as subspecies, so it is inappropriate to use the term “race” with respect to this variation.
Well, “race” does have some sort of meaning in the social sense. Certainly “race” is recognized in US society. It is, however, important to realize that race in this sense is a social construct (as has been said before), and does not correspond at all to its biological meaning. It has more meaning as an ethnic/social category than anything else.
Not sure why it’s needed, though. I think you might be ignoring step clines, in which the “plateaus” are often assigned subspecies status, though. Not all clines are linear, which do indeed pose a problem as to where the delineation should be.
And no, I’m not sure you fully understand the PSC. The PSC does not declare A and B to be separate species just because they are diagnosable. This sounds more like Linnean phenetics.
No, the PSC is merely a tool for identifying what could be species, based on ancestry and shared characters, via cladistic analysis. It then requires an actual research program (beyond the cladistics that many consider the PSC to be) to determine if specation has been both initiated and completed.
I high recommend, especially if you are attempting to describe a species, The Nature of Diversity: An Evolutionary Voyage of Discovery (Brooks & McClennan 2002). It goes into great detail regarding the phylogenetic methods.
You’re right, I spelled it wrong. Spellchecker didn’t help!
I vote “subspecies” myself, but honestly, there’s too much guesswork for pre-historic species to be absolutely sure.
**
LucyInDisguise**, you are more or less correct. “Race” still has some validty for the Social Sciences; but even there, lumping people together primarily on skin color is still wrong, IMHO. Even for the Social sciences, there should be at least 4 “black races” (note, I don’t like that term, but ) But Colibri & Tomndebb did all the hard thinking here, I just tried to make the terms a little simpler for a layman. Colibri is 100% in saying that other animal species also have “populations”- there the term is often used to describe a grouping in a species that doesn’t rise to Subspecies. This is correct for Homo Sapiens- that species has no current extant subspecies. I am not even going to put “IMHO” there as I can’t think of any legit scientists that claims current sub-species of Homo Sapiens.
It’s not so much about voting and guessing as it is about choosing a model and coming to a conclusion from the available evidence, of which there is quite a bit. Using the BSC, as I think most biologist do, there is a strong case to be made for putting Neanderthals in a seperate species. They were a morphologically distinct, largely isolated population which, even if they could interbreed with Sapiens, appeared to have done so only on rare occasions.
Not that Mother Nature really cares one way or another how many discrete boxes we humans arbitrarily put around the continuum of life that She has laid out in front of us.
Pfft! Just a bunch of party animals in my experience :D.
But I tend to agree - the BSC is dieing most everywhere except maybe among the endotherm folks. It was on its way out with herpetologists a decade or two ago and none of the arachnologists I hang out with these days use it either ( I did use to know a couple of hardcore utilitarian pheneticists, but I don’t think they are active anymore ).
By the way, I’m sure Colibri is more than experienced in species descriptions - he’s been doing this for awhile I believe. But for myself I remember thinking Brooks & McLennan’s book Phylogeny, Ecology and Behavior was pretty neat.
sigh Maybe I should get back into reading biology again.
I don’t know much about botanists, so I should have said “most anthropologists”.
Now, that is an interesting subject. Nothing like getting lawmakers and activists involved in the scientific process!
I’ve actually seen at least one anthropologist suggest a political reason for calssifying Neanderthals as a subspecies. IIRC, the argument was based on staking out that ground for the Neanderthals so that no one could use it (subspecies = race) for any extant human population.
I realise you were just trying to use it as an abbreviation, but you have commited a major fox paws. The word "Abo"is highly offensive and derogatory. While perhaps not quite as bad as ‘nigger’ it is directly equatable with ‘spic’ or ‘wetback’ and should never be used unless you intend to be offensive.
Only to a slightly lesser degree than “European” is a population. Aborigines are nither genetically nor phenotypically uniform nor have they ever been isolated for extended periods. Europeans form a afr more homogeneous population than Aborigines.
Noted. I had no idea, honestly. Thought it was just short for Aborigine- which I understand isn’t all that PC now a days either, but it seems that no 'racial" term is, anyway.
I know. Just a heads up for avoiding future cultural misunderstandings.
Given that Australians love contracting any word over 2 syllables it probably did start out as a short form of Aborigine, but the context has changed over time and it is now definitely not acceptable.
Aborigine is still perfectly acceptable, although “Aboriginal Australian” is probably more "PC’ as you put it.
) But Colibri & Tomndebb did all the hard thinking here, I just tried to make the terms a little simpler for a layman. Colibri is 100% in saying that other animal species also have “populations”- there the term is often used to describe a grouping in a species that doesn’t rise to Subspecies. This is correct for Homo Sapiens- that species has no current extant subspecies. I am not even going to put “IMHO” there as I can’t think of any legit scientists that claims current sub-species of Homo Sapiens.