Book contents
- Cladistics
- The Systematics Association Special Volume Series
- Cladistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Carving Nature at Its Joints, or Why Birds Are Not Dinosaurs and Men Are Not Apes
- Part I The Interrelationships of Organisms
- Part II Systematics: Exposing Myths
- 3 Relationship Diagrams
- 4 Essentialism and Typology
- 5 Monothetic and Polythetic Taxa
- 6 Non-taxa or the Absence of –Phyly: Paraphyly and Aphyly
- Part III The Cladistic Programme
- Part IV How to Study Classification
- Part V Beyond Classification
- Afterword
- Index
- Systematics Association Special Volumes
- References
4 - Essentialism and Typology
from Part II - Systematics: Exposing Myths
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2020
Book contents
- Cladistics
- The Systematics Association Special Volume Series
- Cladistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Carving Nature at Its Joints, or Why Birds Are Not Dinosaurs and Men Are Not Apes
- Part I The Interrelationships of Organisms
- Part II Systematics: Exposing Myths
- 3 Relationship Diagrams
- 4 Essentialism and Typology
- 5 Monothetic and Polythetic Taxa
- 6 Non-taxa or the Absence of –Phyly: Paraphyly and Aphyly
- Part III The Cladistic Programme
- Part IV How to Study Classification
- Part V Beyond Classification
- Afterword
- Index
- Systematics Association Special Volumes
- References
Summary
Part of the problem of species delineation is the fact that morphology, as an approach for delimiting species, has some limits. Traditional morphology-based taxonomy only discriminates what Cain (1954) called ‘morphospecies’, i.e. species exclusively established on morphology … Traditional morphology-based taxonomy is not the study of life’s diversity per se, but rather the study of one of its multiple facets, morphological diversity, which I refer to as ‘morphodiversity’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- CladisticsA Guide to Biological Classification, pp. 108 - 118Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
References
Agassiz, L. 1869. De l’espèce et de la classification en zoologie. Bailiere, Paris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brockman, J. 2015. This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress. Harper Perennial, New York.Google Scholar
Cain, AJ. 1953. Geography, ecology and coexistence in relation to the biological definition of the species. Evolution 7: 76–83.Google Scholar
Cain, AJ. 1958. Logic and memory in Linnaeus’s system of taxonomy. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London 169: 144–163.Google Scholar
Cain, AJ. & Harrison, GA. 1958. An analysis of the taxonomist’s judgement of affinity. Proceedings of the Zoological Society, London 131: 85–98.Google Scholar
Chung, C. 2003. On the origin of the typological/population distinction in Ernst Mayr’s changing views of species, 1942–1959. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34: 277–296.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. 2015. Essentialism. In: Brockman, J. (ed.), This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress. Harper Perennial, New York, pp. 84–87.Google Scholar
Dayrat, B. 2005. Towards integrative taxonomy. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 85: 407–415.Google Scholar
de Queiroz, K. 1992. Phylogenetic definitions and taxonomic philosophy. Biology and Philosophy 7: 295–313.Google Scholar
de Queiroz, K. 1997. The Linnaean hierarchy and the evolutionization of taxonomy, with emphasis on the problem of nomenclature. Aliso 15: 125–144.Google Scholar
de Queiroz, K. & Gauthier, J. 1990. Phylogeny as a central principle in taxonomy: phylogenetic definitions of taxon names. Systematic Zoology 39: 307–322.Google Scholar
Dobzhansky, T. 1954. [Review of: Cain, AJ. 1954. Animal Species and Their Evolution. Harper & Row, New York] Nature 173 (13 February): 286–287Google Scholar
Ebach, MC., Morrone, JJ. & Williams, DM. 2008. An outline of the foundations of systematics and biogeography. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 29: 21–24.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, M. 2001. The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy: A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.Google Scholar
Ereshefsky, M. 2007. Psychological categories as homologies: lessons from ethology. Biology and Philosophy 22: 659–674.Google Scholar
Farber, PL. 1978. A historical perspective on the impact of the type concept on insect systematics. Annual Review of Entomology 23: 91–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farris, JS. & Platnick, NI. 1989. Lord of the flies: the systematist as study animal. Cladistics 5: 295–310.Google Scholar
Ford, EB. 1977. Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky. 25 January 1900–18 December 1975. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 23: 58–89.Google Scholar
Hull, DL. 1965. The effects of essentialism on taxonomy: two thousand years of stasis. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 15: 314–326, 16: 1–18 [reprinted in Concepts of Species, C. N. Slobodchikoff (ed.), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976; in The Units of Selection, Marc Ereshefsky (ed.), Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992].Google Scholar
Levit, GS. & Meister, K. 2006. The history of essentialism vs. Ernst Mayr’s ‘‘Essentialism Story’’: A case study of German idealistic morphology. Theory in Biosciences 124: 281–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenberg, BJ. 1965. Darwin and Darwin studies 1959–1965. History of Science 4: 15–54.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1926. Die Ausbreitung des Girlitz (Serinus canaria serinus L.). Ein Beitrag zur Tiergeographie. Journal für Ornithologie 4: 571–671.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1959. Darwin and the evolutionary theory in biology. In: Evolution and Anthropology: A Centennial Appraisal. The Anthropological Society of Washington, Washington, DC, pp. 1–10 [reprinted in Mayr, E. 1976. Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 26–29; reprinted as Mayr, E. 1976. Typological thinking versus population thinking. In: Evolution and the Diversity of Life: Selected Essays. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 26–29 and Sober, E. (ed.). 1994. Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology. The MIT Press. Bradford Books, Cambridge, MA, London, pp. 157–160].Google Scholar
Mayr, E. 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Müller-Wille, S. 2007. Collection and collation: theory and practice of Linnaean botany. Studies in History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38: 541–562.Google Scholar
Neisser, J. 2015. The Science of Subjectivity. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, KC. & Carpenter, JM. 2000. On the other “Phylogenetic Systematics”. Cladistics 16: 298–318.Google Scholar
Nixon, KC, Carpenter, JM. & Stevenson, DW. 2003. The PhyloCode is fatally flawed, and the “Linnean” system can easily be fixed. Botanical Review 69: 111–120.Google Scholar
O’Hara, RJ. 1994. Evolutionary history and the species problem. American Zoologist 34: 12–22.Google Scholar
O’Hara, RJ. 1997. Population thinking and tree thinking in systematics. Zoologica Scripta 26: 323–329.Google Scholar
Platnick, NI. & Rosen, DE. 1987. Popper and evolutionary novelties. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 9: 5–16.Google Scholar
Popper, K. 1950. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Simpson, GG. 1961. Principles of Animal Taxonomy. Columbia University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stearn, WT. 1959. Four Supplementary Linnaean Publications: Methodus (1736), Demonstrationes Plantarum (1753), Généra Plantarum (1754), Ordines naturales (1764). In: Linnaeus, C., Species Plantarum: A Facsimile, Vol. 2. Ray Society, London, pp. 73–102.Google Scholar
Stevens, PF. 1994. The Development of Biological Systematics: Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, Nature, and the Natural System. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Wagner, G. 2014. Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation. Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford.Google Scholar
Wagner, G. 2015. What is “homology thinking” and what is it for? Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B Molecular and Developmental Evolution 326: 3–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winsor, MP. 2001. Cain on Linnaeus: the scientist-historian as unanalysed entity. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 32: 239–254.Google Scholar
Winsor, MP. 2003. Non-essentialist methods in pre-Darwinian taxonomy. Biology and Philosophy 18: 387–400.Google Scholar
Winsor, MP. 2006a. Linnaeus’s biology was not essentialist. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Gardens 93: 2–7.Google Scholar
Winsor, MP. 2006b. Creation of the essentialism story: an exercise in metahistory. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 28(2): 149–174.Google Scholar
Winsor, MP. 2013. Darwin and taxonomy. In: Ruse, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 72–79.Google Scholar
Witteveen, J. 2015a. ‘A temporary oversimplification’: Mayr, Simpson, Dobzhansky, and the origins of the typology/population dichotomy (Part 1 of 2). Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 54: 20–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Witteveen, J. 2015b. ‘A temporary oversimplification’: Mayr, Simpson, Dobzhansky, and the origins of the typology/population dichotomy (Part 2 of 2). Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 57: 96–105.Google Scholar
Further Reading
Liagouras, G. 2019. Population thinking vs. essentialism in biology and evolutionary economics. OSF Preprints. January 7. http://doi:10.31219/osf.io/r4g8x.Google Scholar
McOuat, GR. 2009. The origins of natural kinds: keeping “Essentialism” at bay in the age of reform. Intellectual History Review 19: 211–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller-Wille, S. 2013. Systems and how Linnaeus looked at them in retrospect. Annals of Science 70: 305–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pratt, V. 1985. System-building in the eighteenth century. In: North, JD. & Roche, JJ. (eds), The Light of Nature. International Archives of the History of Ideas, Vol. 110. Springer Nature, Switzerland AG, pp. 421–431.Google Scholar
Richards, R. 2010. The Species Problem: A Philosophical Analysis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varma, CS. 2008. Threads that guide or ties that bind: William Kirby and the essentialism story. Journal of the History of Biology 42: 119–149.Google Scholar
Wilkins, J. 2009. Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today. American University Studies, Peter Lang, New York.Google Scholar
Wilkins, JS. 2013. Biological essentialism and the tidal change of natural kinds. Science and Education 22: 221–240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar