It was completely arbitrary. I was just giving an example of a typical case.
I’m not sure anyone fully understands the PSC, including Cracraft himself. Nor the BSC, for that matter, including the late lamented Ernst. I was simplifying for the sake of this thread. I don’t really want to get involved in a discussion of the pros and cons of the PSC and BSC here.
Which makes the PSC just about as weak in practice as the BSC is alleged to be.
I know how to describe a species, thank you very much. It’s just that this particular case is possibly going to embroil me, for reasons I don’t want to go into here, with one of the grand gurus of the PSC. It’s sort of like marrying outside one’s religion.
I’m not so sure you should be attempting to describe a species of bird if you don’t see how the BSC ignores history. It is a non-dimensional species concept.
Oh, they’re biologists all right, but they’re kind of weird. Not as weird as herpetologists, though. The stories I could tell about the herp guys on our Gabon expedition would make you blanch! :eek:
Actually I was thinking of writing up a Staff Report on it, after I get done with “the wild ancestors of hamsters” and “the evolution of the human butt,” which are also on my Mailbag “to do” list.
Gotcha. I had interpreted it as a sort of rule of thumb.
I disagree. As concepts, they are understood. They are both built on artificial rules, so they can be understood.
Is there weakness in saying “this could be the case, let’s look further?” If anything, I think there is more weakness in “these guys reproduce. Done, and done.” The BSC is a convenience.
A lot of biologists know what they’re doing, thank you very much. That doesn’t mean they’re right.
And the PSC ignores gene flow. Both concepts have their pros and cons. I would point out, however, that most biologists still favor the BSC (and most species are described on that basis), even if a vocal minority (mostly museum-based, most of whom don’t work with organisms in nature) promote the PSC. The majority of species descriptions of birds I have seen recently address both the BSC and PSC aspects (which I will do as well). However, I have the impression that “pure PSC” species of birds are rarely published anywhere but in house journals where the authors have an “in.”
Actually, a very good point, and in practical terms a major benefit of the PSC is all the splitting it would entail. However, a nineteenth-century type Morphological Species Concept would do that pretty much as well
The problem with a real scientist brawl on these boards is that in about three more posts, 80% of us are no longer even going to understand the argument.
Like I said, both concepts have their pros and cons. I plan to address both concepts in my description. I would feel better about it if I had the evidence that it is both a PSC and a BSC species. It is clearly morphologically and genetically distinctive; but I really would like to find out what happens in the contact zone with other populations, where we have no data.
When it comes to species concepts, of course nobody is “right.” Species are human constructs, defined to simplify the complexity we find in nature. I don’t think the PSC is wrong, just that they’re “cheap” species. I’d rather have a species that hits on all cylinders.
Fair enough. I think we actually agree on most things. But, the BSC hits on all its cylinders because those are the cylinders it uses. It opts to ignore the history cylinder, that’s all.
Anyway, I guess this is enough for this on the SDMB… we could argue for ages about this.
Nor the BSC, for that matter, including the late lamented Ernst. I was simplifying for the sake of this thread. I don’t really want to get involved in a discussion of the pros and cons of the PSC and BSC here.
