Definition of "species"

[Ron Gatrelle]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 1_iron 
  To: Leps-L 
  Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 4:40 AM
  Subject: Definition of "species"

  Snips of some good stuff.

  Until you get your act together, I shall deem a species to be defined by
  fertile offspring, and I shall deny there is such a thing as a subspecies.
  How can there be under the above definition?
  ____________________________

      Jim, you have hit a clear note. Precisely. It is the lack of a clear understanding of what a species is - that prevents some from having a clue to what subspecies are. The first thing is that there is nothing "sub" about them. Actually, they are just the opposite. They are that "new" part of the species that is going up to the next reproductively isolated step on the ladder toward becoming another species. No new species has ever come into its own without first being a "sub" (new part)  of something else. 

  This is the third Law of Evolution. "To come into being an organism must first exist as part of something else.  This something else must be a stabilized replicating  entity. The advancing part becomes the new organism."  Don't even ask what Ron's first Law of Evolution is. Most won't even want to hear it as they would probably get upset by it. This law would then apply to single organisms or groups of them. One individual or group replicating after its kind gives rise to another individual or group(s) replicating after its(their) kind. This also means that all living things exist as either past parental parts (subs) or advancing parts (subs) of the entire biota.
  Ron

  There are only three Laws of Evolution.
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