News Germany - singing animals soon to be outlawed

[DaGaffer]

I thought one of the definitions was the ability to breed true? I think Tigons and Ligers are sterile aren't they? (NB. Despite visual evidence to the contrary dogs are all one species; the dimorphism in dogs is all recent from an evolutionary perspective and all down to human meddling).

 

[Killswitch]

I said that the ability to interbreed does not preclude multiple species.

Your rather odd counter was that anything that looked similar was all actually the same species.

I still haven't seen anything you raised that actually shows that the ability to interbreed is a good definition of a species so from that standpoint your not even arguing the point.

I must have written it wrong. You can only cross-breed within a species, but you can produce a hybrid between species if they are suitably similar. How something looks has no bearing (beyond basic mechanics of number of legs/heads/arseholes) on whether it is the same species as something similar, where very similar birds (for example) can be different species and very different dogs are always the same species.

The ability to cross-breed and produce viable, fertile offspring is the most basic definition of a species (for animals anyway...not so much for bacteria and viruses and suchlike). There are many others though and there's no consensus over which is right or even whether one can ever be right in all circumstances.

 

[Killswitch]

I thought one of the definitions was the ability to breed true? I think Tigons and Ligers are sterile aren't they? (NB. Despite visual evidence to the contrary dogs are all one species; the dimorphism in dogs is all recent from an evolutionary perspective and all down to human meddling).

Correct - hence my admission of being wrong

 

[Killswitch]

I cant say I'm really suprised to see your ad hominem attack since you are clearly out of your depth tbh.

I don't think 'ad hominem' means what you think it means

 

[rynnor]

Dogs and wolves however (all dogs and all wolves) are the same species and so are all humans.

Wolves have various sub-species - the North American ones are quite markedly different in size, appearance and even skull structure from the Eurasian ones and hunt much larger prey.

 

[rynnor]

I don't think 'ad hominem' means what you think it means

Attacking the person rather than directly challenging their arguement - perhaps you have your own unique definition

 

[Killswitch]

Wolves have various sub-species - the North American ones are quite markedly different in size, appearance and even skull structure from the Eurasian ones and hunt much larger prey.

The domestic dog was accepted as a species in its own right until overwhelming evidence from behavior, vocalizations, morphology, and molecular biology led to the contemporary scientific understanding that a single species, the gray wolf, is the common ancestor for all breeds of domestic dogs.[24][25][26] In recognition of this fact, the domestic dog was reclassified in 1993 as Canis lupus familiaris, a subspecies of the gray wolf Canis lupus, by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Society of Mammalogists. C. l. familiaris is listed as the name for the taxon that is broadly used in the scientific community and recommended by ITIS, although Canis familiaris is a recognised synonym.[27]
Since that time, C. domesticus and all taxa referring to domestic dogs or subspecies of dog listed by Linnaeus, Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1792, and Christian Smith in 1839, lost their subspecies status and have been listed as taxonomic synonyms for Canis lupus familiaris [28]

It's Wikipedia, so take with a pinch of salt.

 

[rynnor]

(NB. Despite visual evidence to the contrary dogs are all one species; the dimorphism in dogs is all recent from an evolutionary perspective and all down to human meddling).

There's no rule about how long a difference has existed for it to be a seperate species really.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/100201_speciation

 

[Killswitch]

Attacking the person rather than directly challenging their arguement - perhaps you have your own unique definition

Possibly...although I was attacking the argument as one being put forward by extreme right-wing groups and not by anyone in the mainstream. I didn't call you a racist or anything similar. The argument that black people are a different species to white people has been the root cause of a lot of undue suffering and is provably untrue.

 

[Killswitch]

There's no rule about how long a difference has existed for it to be a seperate species really.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/100201_speciation

Isn't the point whether or not they can interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring? That's the only definition I've used for the entire discussion. I still have no clue what you think a species is.

I've already accepted that there are other definitions AND that I was confusing crossbreeds with hybrids, for which I've already apologised.

 

[Scouse]

Isn't the point whether or not they can interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring?

It's a "rule of thumb" - but not the complete definition. There's more to take into account than just the breeding thing.

 

[Killswitch]

It's a "rule of thumb" - but not the complete definition. There's more to take into account than just the breeding thing.

Agreed...in fact, that's such a good answer that I'm going to say that, in my mind, it supplants all previous answers and I am going to exit the conversation at this point, having been wrong (so far today) about evolution, parking fines, holiday destinations and choice of places to live in London.

Even I'M not usually 0/4 in one day. I must be slipping.

 

[rynnor]

This is a great watch if you want the modern view of species http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lhl/lhlpub_autumn06/14_301106

 

[rynnor]

The argument that black people are a different species to white people has been the root cause of a lot of undue suffering and is provably untrue.

Look I know this is a taboo area and for that reason no professional scientist dares touch the area of human speciation with a bargepole but...

Even white people could be argued to consist of different sub-species - scandanavians even have their own blood group which is pretty fundamental. To say that we are all the same under the skin is to ignore what we have seen from genetic analysis.

Europeans evolved the ability to ingest milk for example - there are lots of genetic differences between different populations and these have been recognised by medical practitioners who treat them differently - people from the indian sub-continent are more prone to high cholesterol and heart disease apparently.

Please note that I do not support any of this as a reason to treat anyone differently except in a healthcare way and in that area I believe we will one day progress to treating people on an individual basis since we are all genetically unique.

 

[opticle]

Zebras and horses both belong to the family Equidae, and the genus Equus. However, they are different species - horses being E. caballus, and zebras E. burchelli (Burchell's or plains zebra), E. grevyi (Grevy's zebra), and E. zebra (mountain zebra). They are related closely enough that they are able to interbreed, producing a 'zorse' - however, like most hybrids, zorses are usually sterile. Zebras can also interbreed with donkeys (E. asinus), producing a 'zeedonk', and, of course, horses and donkeys can interbreed and produce mules (offspring of a male donkey and female horse) or hinnies (offspring of a male horse and female donkey).

I really don't think it's that fucking complicated. Same with lions and tigers.

Humans and chimps are actually more closely related than many animals in the same genus. For example, lions and tigers are both placed in the genus Panthera, and are capable of interbreeding, but they are more distantly related than humans and chimps.

It's just Science. There are definitions.

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, the difficulty of defining species is known as the species problem. Differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology or ecological niche. Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into "infraspecific taxa" such as subspecies (and in botany other taxa are used, such as varieties, subvarieties, and formae).

I.e. Yes, the breeding thing used to be accepted. But now it isn't.

Lions and tigers - same genus, difference species.

Dogs - same species, different breeds due to selection - like natural selection cough humans cough - NOT different species.

The same book can have different covers Pigmentation is a very tiny difference, as are slight changes on bone structure.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Dogs - same species, different breeds due to selection

Black, white, asian; all dem b*tches be crazy

 

[mr.Blacky]

Politicians sticking their noses in to enforce a christian morality tbfh.

Sorry wrong again, one little look would show you that no one knew or cared till animal rights groups and tabloid newspapers pushed for existing legislation to be clarified.
And yes animal rights groups really care about faith as they are secretly trying to turn people to caring about...

As for species talk, the definition is just not precise so you can argue what ever you want.

 

[Wij]

Does the definition even matter?

The argument was that the existence of hybrids in the wild shows that animals shag different animals. But it only shows it for closely related animals who might give off similar 'fuck me' signals anyway.

It doesn't provide any evidence that fucking goes on between highly unrelated animals which would be the equivalent of Klaus wanting to fuck a chicken or a squid.

Not saying there isn't any evidence, but the existence of hybrids isn't it.


Mmmm, here squiddy squiddy !!

 

[rynnor]

Dogs - same species, different breeds due to selection - like natural selection cough humans cough - NOT different species.

Breed is not a scientific term though - they cant be hybrids because they were originally one species.

They now have clear genetic differences including unique diseases - looks an awful lot like speciation to me.

 

[sayward]

Just tried to read this whole thread but i lost the will to live.........

 

[Jupitus]

... and people need to frame their arguments without resorting to 'go die' shite. You can do better than that.

 

[Ctuchik]

I said that the ability to interbreed does not preclude multiple species.

No you said:

The problem with the study of the concept of species is that it runs into issues when you apply it to humans.

If we saw the differences that exist in humans in different regions in another animal we would have called them different species but nobody in the scientific community wants to state this as its tainted by hitlers master race nonsense.

Thus we are stuck with a definition that says if they can interbreed they are one species while simultaneously knowing that this isnt true.

Which was the point i was arguing against, be it with questionable arguments because i'm not a biologist and i left school ~18 years ago. But the point i was making still stands. There is one, and only one, human species. How you look or where you live is irrelevant.

 

[rynnor]

Which was the point i was arguing against, be it with questionable arguments because i'm not a biologist and i left school ~18 years ago. But the point i was making still stands. There is one, and only one, human species. How you look or where you live is irrelevant.

Well no - visual differences and regional seperation are important parts of speciation and as stated above the differences between different populations of humans are far more than skin deep so I dont know why people say that?

 

[DaGaffer]

Well no - visual differences and regional seperation are important parts of speciation and as stated above the differences between different populations of humans are far more than skin deep so I dont know why people say that?

Are you genuinely trying to claim there's more than one species of Homo Sapiens? Because biologists and geneticists would disagree with you. The general view is there's much less genetic difference between humans than there is between most other species (about 0.1%), indicating a population bottleneck sometime in the last 30,000 years. We're all descended from a pretty small seed population. Oh, and most of that 0.1% variation is accounted for by variance between African populations, there's even less variation in the out of Africa populations.

 

[rynnor]

Are you genuinely trying to claim there's more than one species of Homo Sapiens? Because biologists and geneticists would disagree with you. The general view is there's much less genetic difference between humans than there is between most other species (about 0.1%), indicating a population bottleneck sometime in the last 30,000 years. We're all descended from a pretty small seed population. Oh, and most of that 0.1% variation is accounted for by variance between African populations, there's even less variation in the out of Africa populations.

0.1% is actually enough for some quite big differences - 0.3% was enough to give you neanderthals and we are only 1.2% away from Chimps. In percentile terms theres actually not that much genetic diversity on earth - humans share 70% of our genetic code with the humble sea sponge.

There's no agreed level of genetic difference required for a seperate species - it can be extremely low like in that bird one I posted earlier where one population decided to start overwintering in the UK rather than Spain in the last few decades.

 

[Scouse]

I agree with rynnor.

 

[Jeros]

God did it.

 

[sayward]

God did what? Changed the title of this thread?

 

[TdC]

I'm monkey Jebus!!