Thursday, May 05, 2005
Species?
I said before that I am suspicious of what gets defined as a species these days. So, when there was a big announcement of a new species of salamander, I was a little skeptical, especially when I read this:
I found this site and this site, neither of which can come up with a reasonable definition of what actually constitutes a species. I was surprised, when I studied zoology the "phylum" and "genus" were pretty easily understood and defined concepts. "Species" was too specific for the classes I took, but I assumed (big mistake) that "species" would be similarly well defined.
Given how much public policy is based on the idea of "species" I found this lack of agreed definition rather troubling. "Surely," I thought, "laws involving the concept will contain a precise and useful definition." So, I fired up Google, looked up the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and found this:
This research does not make me happy. One suspects a couple of things. First, "discovering" a species is a great way to attract funding, so it is in science's best interest to have a slippery definition. Secondly, if you want to stop a development, or take someone's land from them, passing the ESA with a slippery definition is likewise in your best interest. I was hoping this research would allay those suspicions, instead it confirms them. The entire "biodiversity" concern is built on a terribly shaky foundation.
Bad science combined with bad law is a dangerous combination. This really does give an enormous amount of power to a relatively few judges and a likely even fewer number of "experts." People are losing real property, or having their real property rendered valueless based on this house of cards. That's criminal.
What to do? Two things -- First, lobby congress to repeal the ESA, or modify to give species a precise definition. Second, go here and click the link at top and write the wobbly Senators to make sure the President Bush's judicial nominees get and up and down vote, hopefully resulting in judges on the bench that will not abuse the enormous power this situation gives them.
"I've discovered and named nearly 50 species of salamanders - more than 10 percent of the total in the world. I've discovered new genera in Guatemala and Costa Rica. But this tops everything I've ever found by a long ways," said David Wake, an expert on amphibians at the University of California, Berkeley.One guy, in my most recent of lifetimes, has found 10% of all known species of salamander? Yeah, I think skepticism is called for, particularly when they are "finding" species thought extinct. So I went looking.
I found this site and this site, neither of which can come up with a reasonable definition of what actually constitutes a species. I was surprised, when I studied zoology the "phylum" and "genus" were pretty easily understood and defined concepts. "Species" was too specific for the classes I took, but I assumed (big mistake) that "species" would be similarly well defined.
Given how much public policy is based on the idea of "species" I found this lack of agreed definition rather troubling. "Surely," I thought, "laws involving the concept will contain a precise and useful definition." So, I fired up Google, looked up the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and found this:
...any subspecies of fish of wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species or vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature.Now I'm really worried, they are defining a word, based on itself when there is no agreed upon definition. And here's what really gets to me, interbreeding is the closest to a precise characterization in that definition, but it would make a lot less species, not more. For example, if interbreeding is the only qualification, then lions and tigers are then same species (see liger) and are zebras and donkeys (see zonkey.) One has to wonder if these soon to be evolved animals wil be a new species or not.
This research does not make me happy. One suspects a couple of things. First, "discovering" a species is a great way to attract funding, so it is in science's best interest to have a slippery definition. Secondly, if you want to stop a development, or take someone's land from them, passing the ESA with a slippery definition is likewise in your best interest. I was hoping this research would allay those suspicions, instead it confirms them. The entire "biodiversity" concern is built on a terribly shaky foundation.
Bad science combined with bad law is a dangerous combination. This really does give an enormous amount of power to a relatively few judges and a likely even fewer number of "experts." People are losing real property, or having their real property rendered valueless based on this house of cards. That's criminal.
What to do? Two things -- First, lobby congress to repeal the ESA, or modify to give species a precise definition. Second, go here and click the link at top and write the wobbly Senators to make sure the President Bush's judicial nominees get and up and down vote, hopefully resulting in judges on the bench that will not abuse the enormous power this situation gives them.
