Biological Species Concept (BSC)
What are biological species? At first glance, this seems like an easy question to answer. Homo sapiens is a species, and so is Canis familaris (dog). Many species can be easily distinguished. When we turn to the technical literature on species, the nature of species becomes much less clear. Biologists offer a dozen definitions of the term "species". These definitions are not fringe accounts of species but prominent definitions in the current biological literature. Philosophers also disagree on the nature of species. Here the concern is the ontological status of species. Some philosophers believe that species are natural kinds. Others maintain that species are particulars or individuals. The concept of species plays an important role both in and outside of biology. Because of the important role of this concept, many biologists proposed definitions for this concept.
Over the last few decades, the Biological Species Concept (BSC) has become predominately the dominant species definition used in biology. This concept defines a species as a reproductive community. This though has had much refinement through the years. The earliest precursor to the concept is in Du Rietz (1930) then later Dobzhansky added to this definition in 1937. But even after this the definition was highly restrictive, the definition of a species that is accepted as the Biological Species Concept was founded by Ernst Mayr; “...groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups”. However, this is a definition on what happens in nature. Mayr later amended this definition to include an ecological component; “... a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature. The BSC is greatly accepted among vertebrate zoologists and entomologists. Two reasons account for this addition to the definition of Biological Species Concept. Firstly, these are the groups that the authors of the BSC worked with (Mayr is an Ornithologist & Dobzhansky has worked mainly with Drosophila). More importantly, Sexual reproduction is the predominate form of reproduction in these groups. It is not coincidental that the BSC is less widely used amongst botanists. Terrestrial plants exhibit much greater diversity in their mode of reproduction than vertebrates and insects.
There have been many criticisms of the BSC in its theoretical validity and practical utility. For example, the application of the BSC to a number of groups is problematic because of interspecific hybridization between clearly delimited species.
Singer ensures that the reader can easily relate to this concept by drawing parallels between it, racism and sexism. Drawing this parallel also automatically associates speciesism with a negative emotion in the mind of the reader, since the concepts of racism and sexism generally carry powerful negative connotations in the modern age. It is then easier for Singer to convince the reader that a variance in treatment for animals simply based on the fact that they are not human is “morally indefensible” (Singer, Animal Liberation, p. 16). Speciesism thus becomes a powerful vehicle to convey the arguments he makes against the difference in treatment afforded by humans to animals as compared to other humans.
Evolution can be defined differently within each sub-field of anthropology. However, biological anthropology is defined as: the sub-field of anthropology that studies humans as a biological species (Park, 2008). With that said, a biological anthropologist would study evolution using things such as: genetics, fossil records, bio-diversity, primatology, or human ecology. In particular (albeit rare) cases, some anthropologists have been known to study monkeys and apes because their genes are more closely related to humans than that of any other species. According to fossil records, it has been shown that there were a bewildering number of hominid species over the last 6-7 million years (Willoughby, 2005). However, Homo sapiens is the sole hominid on the planet, and has been for about the last 25,000 years (Tattersall, 2000). This type of fossil research is beneficial to the study of evolution since it has provided tangible evidence that evolution has happened, is currently...
There is a difference between a biological and a social view of race. Biologically, race is seen as genetic, unchanging, and distinct categories of people; this includes physiological differences within different races. A social view of race is not simply scientific, but also includes the societies where people live, how race affects social hierarchy as well as psychographic and geographic traits.
...lieve that races are distinct biological categories created by differences in genes that people inherit from their ancestors. Genes vary, but not in the popular notion of black, white, yellow, red and brown races. Many biologist and anthropologists have concluded that race is a social, cultural and political concept based largely on superficial appearances. (4)
The concept of transitional species is an important and complex notion in evolutionary biology. To begin with, there is no such thing as transitional species since all living things were always evolving in the past, not stopping at one stage or another, and they will continue to evolve in the future. In terms of evolutionary biology, we use the concept of transitional species as a way to dim ambiguity. Much like the use of the Linnean taxonomic system of species, we come up with concepts like transitional species to organize and classify species in order to understand their evolutionary roots and how those species changed through life’s history to become what they are today. “In the same way that the concept of species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms at a single point in time, the concept of transitional species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms over a length of time, usually quite a long time, such as hundreds of thousands or millions of years” (111). Though it can be difficult to distinguish what can be considered an ancestral species from another, the fossil record can show us how species change through time as they develop ways to adapt to stresses found in their environments. “In the modern sense, organisms or fossils that show intermediate stages between ancestral and that of the current state are referred to as transitional species” (222). The concept of transitional species is, in essence, fairly straight forward. This paper will outline the concept of transitional (or sometimes termed intermediate) species and the latter’s role in evolutionary biology, as well as go in depth about several common transitional species: Tiktaalik, an animal at the cusp between life in the water and ...
The sixth major case of Endangered Specie. The laboratory Rats are bred every year to serve various scientific purposes. Once the test are complete the rat are rapidly killed, with the result that the variety becomes extinct.
The literature does provide evidence for my hypothesis and also provides a clearer picture as to how frequent and to what extent the interbreeding is believed to occur. Examining these articles will introduce the new findin...
An animal is a living thing which varies from a range of different sizes, shapes, forms and cells which are specialized to carry out certain functions (Quinn, 2003). There are certain functions mutual to all living things which are movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition (MRS GREN). These living processes are essential characteristics which are used to define species as living organisms (Worcester, 2015). Carl Linnaeus developed a system where animals were amongst one of the broad group in kingdoms, which he then divided into classes and were further identified by a Genus or a species name and this was known as the Linnaean classification system. A genus includes species of individual organisms grouped
In The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson reflects on how the living world became diverse and how humans are destroying that diversity. In the book’s preface, Wilson defines biodiversity as “the totality of inherited variation in all organisms in a selected area” (Wilson ix). He adds that modern technology will allow for us to find many new species that were previously unknown to be in existence.
Species can be perceived by their make and after some time population change, specific and lineage split into new species. For instance, we can all observe that there is a "most distant point" that isolates pooches from chimpanzees and chimpanzees from individuals. For a critical long time, researchers recalled that one animal types from another by perceivable separations in external and internal features. Since various
To the extent that philosophy and biology have a consensus regarding biological species is the notion that our species fall into an entirely different category of of thing, metaphysically speaking, to chemical elements (Ereshefsky, 2008). An...
...he species of an animal, and diversity is having many different branching species. (Alexander 261)
Charles Darwin’s The Origins of Species is still held in high regard 155 years after it was published. To date it is still the principle model for our understanding of the idea of ‘natural selection’ and the theory of evolution. It is as important then as it is today, as The Origins of Species exemplifies how scientific inquiry offers the tools for the ability to obtain knowledge, the truth and discovery. It also changed the way we think about nature and our place within nature. It also stands as a model that removes any divine intervention with only scientific explanations being acceptable doctrine.
The topic for discussion, “We are One Species”, is a very apt and befitting one. Species may be varied and different kinds of organisms. We, as people, may look different, we may live in a diverse World, we may speak different languages, we may come from different backgrounds, race, culture, or customs, still inherently and intrinsically, we are the same or belong to one species.
In 1758, Carlos Linnaeus established the first major break through with classification, and he today is often referred to as the “Father of taxonomy.” (Ben Waggoner.) He developed a hierarchal naming structure that signified species into two names, genus and species and displayed information about what the species was and information about its closest relations. Linnaeus’s system for “naming, ranking, and classifying organisms” (Ben Waggoner) was so greatly accepted into society because of its effectiveness to convey complex relationships between species. It is still in wide use today and has influenced many generations of biologists.