As I Look Around They Don’t Do It Like My Clique
The Biological Species Concept — its problems and potential solution
The definition was simple.
It made a tonne of sense.
Organisms naturally interbreed to produce viable offspring. It was the definition I would give for species when I was in high school. I was innocent back then.
Now I am guilty of questioning my biology teacher.
If you were awake during biology class, you might remember this definition of species. In evolutionary biology, it is the most preferred concept of species. The biological concept of species is defined thus:
A group of organisms that naturally interbreed to produce viable offspring.
Key pointers are:
- Naturally interbreed — not forced, not caged, not enclosed for scientific experimentation.
- Viable offspring — the ability to produce more offspring.
Broken down in this manner, the limitations of this concept appear hairsplitting. Argument for argument’s sake.
But all you need is a crack in a wall, any wall. A weakness is enough to test the integrity of a theory or a concept. It turns out, this definition has more weaknesses than the key pointers I have listed.
The definition is too simple.
If organisms are to interbreed, they need to be sexual. A minimum of two organisms. This is the first problem. Why? There are plenty of asexual organisms.
Asexual organisms can reproduce without the help of another.
My favourite organisms, microbes, are a good example.
Bacteria reproduce by themselves. Yeast does the same. The biological species concept does not acknowledge the existence of species in these organisms.
How bold.
Detailed dissection of this definition further reveals there to be an issue at the very beginning.
If species are to interbreed then the very first organism must have been a tough nut to crack. It must have started this sexual charade later in its life. Before that period, it must have come from the asexual community.
It was born asexual, then turned sexual.
It started a movement.
It moved from being a mere organism to starting a species movement. It is difficult to reconcile this story with the biological concept of species.
What this shows is this definition focuses only on the final stage of speciation and not the process or the initial stages of it. Speciation is the process of developing new species. This concept only talks of the final result.
One other blow to the idea comes from fossil records.
You cannot establish the behaviour this concept demands of species from fossil records. Let’s say you had identified the first toothbrush used by the able man, Homo habilis.
You cannot tell if this organism naturally interbred to give viable offspring. You only have a hand and a toothbrush. Since evolution is largely a retrodictive science (tries to predict what happened in the past and use it to explain what we observe), the concept fails to define extinct species.
These are a few of the issues with the idea. There’s more, but for now, not necessary. You only need to find a crack. I am sure with a little effort, you can figure out the other challenges.
Closed Organizations
The central idea behind the biological species concept is reproductive isolation. Only the members of a given species can reproduce among themselves to produce viable offspring.
Reproductive isolation is an enclosure generated by the members of the species. It is a boundary. We can then safely infer biological species to be organizationally closed.
This feature equates them to organisms.
Organisms have boundaries. They are generated by the processes ongoing within the organism. The cell has a cell membrane or a cell wall. The contents are isolated. In this regard, it is also organizationally closed.
Open Systems
Since the boundaries are generated by the processes of the components, they need energy. These systems cannot exist and close themselves without energy. Organizational closure would spell death.
Thus, they are not just closed, but open for business.
They might be organizationally closed, but they are open to getting energy sources. Species would have their members reach out to their immediate surroundings for food. Cells would use sunlight or chemical energy to continue running their factories.
If you were awake during some lessons in high school you might recall the law:
Energy cannot be created nor destroyed but converted from one form to another.
This is the first law of thermodynamics.
The science that deals with energy is thermodynamics. Now, back to our isolated systems.
For them to be open to business, they have to be thermodynamically open — open to receive and release energy.
Our isolated structures, therefore, are:
Organizationally closed, but, thermodynamically open.
Remember this, because it will change everything you know about organisms.
To limit my story, I’ll give an example from where we started this discussion — sex.
The common understanding of sex is the fusion of male and female gametes. In humans, the male gametes are found in the testes. In females, in the ovary.
These gametes are unique.
Unlike other cells in our body, they have half the number of nuclear genetic components. These are the chromosomes. Other cells in our bodies have a pair of these nucleic materials. The gametes have half. This is the first point.
The second point is they have internal processes different from other cells in the body.
Their division process is different from that seen in other cells in the body. Other cells undergo mitosis. Mitosis ensures the nuclear material continues with its double stance — if the material were 46 it will always be 46.
On the other hand, these gametes undergo meiosis. Meiosis ensures the nuclear material is always half of what we see in the other cells. If the other cells have 46, then gametes half this number to get 23. The process ensures the nuclear material retains this consistent number with every round of reproduction.
Here’s the kicker.
These processes have isolated the gametes from the other cells.
Each of these types of cells experiences reproductive isolation stemming from the processes they use. Distinct cliques.
What is more, they have barriers preventing direct interactions. For the testes, there is the blood-testes barrier. For the ovaries, the blood-oocyte barrier. It is not just the distinct processes doing the isolation. There are inbuilt structures. Organizationally, they are closed.
They still get nourishment. They are still open for business. They are thermodynamically open.
Through process and structure, these gametes are organizationally closed, yet, thermodynamically open.
They have the same outline as a biological species!
Redefining organisms solves several problems
It makes it worse to hurl more issues at the idea formed by Ernst Mayr, who only aimed to develop the field of evolutionary biology.
It is why I decided to call all of them — species and gonadal systems — organisms.
I define organisms thus:
Organisms are organizationally closed, thermodynamic systems.
Biological species and organisms have similar processes and structures.
This redefinition makes it easier to imagine an organism initially asexual turning sexual later in its life. According to the biological concept, it would have moved from being a mere organism to a species. But from our recent dissection and my definition, it is the evolution of an organism from one organizational entity to another.
Once the asexuality to sexuality jump happens, the internal processes still preserve the organizational enclosure.
Thermodynamic openness explains and allows for the process. Organizational closed-ness defines the final result.
With this idea, we have solved several problems.
Organizations can enclose or in evolutionary terms, isolate. In reality, there are no closed systems. Only open ones. This allows for structures to change and evolve with the changing environment.
An organism only does it like its clique.
As it looks around others don’t do it like its clique.
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