Evolution__3rd_Edition

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Biological species are real, not
nominal units
Folk taxonomy often matches
formal taxonomy
CHAPTER 13 / Species Concepts and Intraspecific Variation 375
taxonomic categories, but has particularly been discussed in the case of the species category.
The idea that species are artificial divisions of a natural continuum is called nominalism;
the alternative, that nature is itself divided into discrete species, is called realism.
On the biological species concept, species are real rather than nominal units in
nature. If we take the set of all organisms currently classified as human beings and as
chimpanzees, then these organisms do divide into two discrete reproductive units. A
human being can interbreed with any other human (subject to provisos, such as that
the two humans are of opposite sex and of reproductive age), but with no chimpanzee.
Interbreeding between species does not blur out. Here is a thought experiment to illustrate
what “blurring out” would mean. Take the set of all human plus all chimpanzee
individuals. Then pick an individual at random. Now experimentally place that individual
with a range of potential mates from across the entire set of other individuals. If
reproductive output varied continuously from 100% to 0% across the full set of mates,
then interbreeding could be said to blur out. In fact reproductive output would jump
between 100% (or a high figure) and 0% with nothing in between. Human and chimpanzee
interbreeding does not blur out. In a way, the strangeness of imagining what
blurring out would mean illustrates how humans and chimpanzees form real, not
nominal, reproductive units. In any case, humans in fact form a real reproductive unit.
So too do most species.
Species are likely to form phenetic units in consequence. Because interbreeding is
confined to a certain set of individuals, an advantageous new mutation will spread
through that set of individuals, but not into other such sets (that is, other species). If
chimpanzees gain a favorable mutation, it will not spread to us even if we would benefit
from it. For this reason, biological species often form real, rather than nominal, phenetic
clusters. The most striking evidence that species exist as phenetic clusters comes
from “folk taxonomy.” People working independently of Western taxonomists usually
have names for the species living in their area, and we can look at whether they have hit
on the same division of nature into species as have Western taxonomists working with
the same raw material. Some people, it seems, do use much the same classification of
species. The Kalám of New Guinea, for instance, recognize 174 vertebrate species, all
but four of which correspond to species recognized by Western taxonomists.
As we saw (Section 13.7.1), phenetic and reproductive units do not always coincide.
In polytypic butterfly species, there are many discrete phenetic forms and “folk taxonomies”
of these butterflies tend to recognize many forms rather than the single biological
species. Likewise, folk taxonomies would probably not distinguish sibling
species, though most sibling species are too obscure for this question even to have been
asked. In summary, species in nature are real rather than nominal interbreeding units
in most cases, but not in all.
13.8.2 Categories below the species level
Species in many cases form discrete phenetic units. This contrasts with subspecific
units such as “subspecies” and “races.” (I put the words in quotes because, although
the categories are sometimes used, biologists are skeptical about their utility for the
reason we are about to look at.) Subspecies and races a the two terms are almost