A fringe effort by a few scientist. It’s not going to happen any time soon, unless someone actually does produce a hybrid!
This was also a GD thread a few weeks ago. I think it was called something like “Chimps are people, too”. I’m too lazy to do a search for it.
John, my point was the argument is a faulty appeal to authority or circular argument because the classificaton was made by physical observation not for purely genetic reasons.
Humans and Chimps are each a different genus. Why? Because they cannot produce hybrid offspring. Why not? Because they are each a different genus.
True. But also true of almost every other classifaction out there )for other animals).
Mostly due to historical bias. We have had a strong prediliction to distance ourselves from “animals”. I agree that if we had it do over again, we might do it differently. But keep in mind that we even put our ancestors from 2-3M yrs ago, the Austraulopithicines, in a different genus. The most commonly used date for the chimp/human split is about 6M yrs ago.
My statemenat that it’s not going to happen is more a recognition of the reality of situation, not an acknowledgement of wheter it’s a good idea or not. If you’re interested in a more detailed discussion about this, check out The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. He’s a well respected scientist and has argued for putting chimps and humans in the same genus for a long time.
Actually, we only have to be different species, not in a different genus, if we can’t produce hybrids. And even if we could produce different hybrids, we’d still be different species (just as no one argues to put horses and donkeys in the same species).
If a hybrid were possible (without too much lab tinkering), then it would be pretty hard to maintain the seperate genus classification. That would turn an aweful lot of scientific (not to mention religious) thinking on its head.
So we agree 
My Webster’s says taxonomy is the “orderly classification of plants and animals according to their presumed natural relationships.” Emphasis mine. My point to Polycarp was that genus has virtually no bearing on whether a chim/human hybrid is possible.
"Get your hands off me, you damn dirty…
"Oh…
“Oh, yeah, that’s nice…”
–bow chicka bow bow–
How about a cow-man?
Meanwhile, down at the patent office, a human/chimp “manimal” is rejected.
Yeah, I do agree with you. I just wanted to point out that there is nothing unique about the classification of humans and chimps based solely on physical characteristics.
You’ve got to remember that we didn’t know anything about evolution or genetics when the whole genus/species deal was invented. We’re stuck with it now. It would be very interesting to see what an alien biologist would come up with if such a being landed here and decided to classify the lifeforms found.
So did I, so I’ll repeat my post:
Michael Jackson and Bubbles.