Species definitions again

John Grehan jrg13 at psu.edu
Tue Nov 23 22:51:39 EST 1999


Stan Gorodenski

>Another aspect of creationist thinking revealed in some of these recent
>messages, is the prevalence of typological thinking regarding a
>species.  Mayr in his Origin of Species discusses how typological
>thinking had hindered biology early on.  Typological thinking is defined
>by Mayr as "A concept in which variation is disregarded and the members
>of a population are considered as replicas of the type, the Platonic
>eidos".  This seems to define the creationist's approach to the
>biological world very well. 

Another view on this is that the prevalence of typological thinking is
not limited to Creationists. 

 Whereas biologists are still attempting to
>define a species (first it began with the Biological Species concept.  A
>lot of this was discussed at the recent Lep Soc meeting in Arizona this
>year),

Species defnitions seem to be typological. Defintions such as the 
biological species defintion present a grouping in which the members
of a population are considered replicas of the type - the "type" in this
case being the essence of the species according to whatever definition
is imposed. I think its unfair to label only creationists with this burden.

 creationists appear to not have made any attempt to define what
>they mean by a species.  

perhaps they don't need to.

There seems to be some sort of vague notion,
>such as dogs are different than birds, and hence are different species,
>but as you get to finer and finer levels, such an approach falls apart. 

Seems to me that if there is still a lot of discussion among evolutionists,
then
perhaps a lot of evolutionists also only have a vague idea also.

>Biologists have come a long way toward understanding the biological
>world.  

With the continued prevelance of essentialism and teleology in evolutionary
biology I do wonder about that assertion.

The typological approach by creationists is a regression to the
>early years in biology, and, hence, a step backwards.

The the backwards step is also taken by many evolutionists.

John Grehan


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