I Got Them Saying: Who Dat?
The biological species concept forbids misfits, but they exist
“The mind state of a winner” — Lamarr Cole
This one is for the misfits.
The ones who could not accept being boxed in by the predefined categories. The ones who dared to stand against set structures. The ones to dared to be bold.
This one is for any organism.
And I use evolution as evidence.
It may turn a little technical but if you get even to the half of this article, you would have gotten the main point.
Pivotal to this argument is misfits embody scientific principles.
In the spirit of science, misfits forbid ideas, concepts, and theories.
So theories will be our entry point.
A theory forbids
The more it forbids, the more applause it gets.
Einstein’s theory forbids anything to be faster than the speed of light. Wolfgang Pauli’s theory forbids a pair of electrons to share the same spin. Geoffrey West’s ecological theory forbids humans to live past 125–130 years.
Theories forbid.
The biological concept of species also forbids several things:
1. The existence of breeding outside species
2. The existence of asexual species
3. The existence of hybrids
Since I have discussed the first two in a previous article, the focus of this article is on the third. And I forbid the third concept because it does not hold in totality.
In evolution, hybrids are misfits.
Despite this, hybrids are a common thing in the present world.
You begin to notice the existence of hybrid products when you go grocery shopping. Most fruits, healthy-looking fruits, are seedless.
I remember when I used to fear seeds. I would imagine a plant germinating and its roots extending throughout my body. The stem would find its way up my esophagus and leaves start sprouting from my mouth and ears.
It was terrifying.
My fears, it appears, were addressed by technology. Nowadays, you can cut the stem of a growing plant and attach another stalk to it. You can perform transplantations from one plant to another.
But this is not what the biological species concept dictates. It says species have to naturally interbreed to form viable offspring. Viable and fertile as synonymous. Now, as far as this definition goes, it has a point.
Breeding outside species tends to result in offspring. But they are not usually viable. A donkey and a horse can produce a hinny or a mule. A female horse and a male donkey produce a mule. A male horse and a female donkey produce a hinny. There is interbreeding, but mules and hinnies are not viable.
They are dead ends.
My question would always be — why then do they live? Why do they exist? If biology does not make sense without evolution, how does one make sense of such organisms if they are dead ends?
There has to be a reason why they exist.
My solution? Organisms exist to avoid annihilation.
These infertile beasts exist because they have a statement to make. They boldly stand in the face of prevailing evolutionary theories and claim — I exist for a reason. The reason might not agree with evolution as conventionally understood, but there is a reason.
I wager the reason is to avoid annihilation.
Mules and hinnies are not the least bit interesting compared to zebroids. Zebroids are all hybrid forms of zebras. They have evolutionary theorists asking — who dat?
But that is not all.
Hybrids, our evolutionary misfits, can exist, even naturally.
To see this possibility, we must take a trip into the past, through thought experiments. We’ll use thought experiments because time, another scientific concept, forbids our physical travel.
Now, the biological species concept permits only sexual entities to form species. Sex, however, does not come out of the blue. It must have come from an asexual being. This asexual being, whatever name you may call it, started a movement.
Earlier in its life, it was asexual. Later in its life, it became sexual. Like all movements, there are followers.
Today, there are organisms that can do both. I like to mention Hydra as the classical organism because we have learned so much from this sea-faring creature.
During harsh environmental conditions, the Hydra resort to sexual reproduction. On the flip side, when there is plenty of food, they reproduce asexually. Like my fears when I was young, the hydra starts budding new organisms from its side. After a short while, the bud detaches itself and implants elsewhere.
Where will the biological species concept place such a rogue organism? I’ll tell you. Nowhere.
It does however agree with another concept of species, one with a focus on the roots of species rather than the processes. It is a mouthful.
It agrees with the phylogenetic species concept.
It also agrees with my idea of the goal of an organism — to avoid annihilation.
Yet again, the biological species ask of the Hydras of the world — who dat?
As a final seal, hybrids exist in nature.
Here we have a concept birthed from an organism that stood in the face of this idea of biological species.
The third final punch comes from plants. Well, not the final punch as plants have been arbiters of freedom for many years. They defy several assertions from different theories in evolution. One of them, yet again, is the assertion of hybrids without the ability to reproduce.
Two sets of chromosomes exist in viable offspring. Those with an even number of chromosomes (body cells) and those with an odd number (sex cells or gametes). Through sex, the odd-numbered cells merge and end up having double-numbered sets of chromosomes. This is the cellular breakdown of how biological species can interbreed to form fertile offspring.
Human sex cells have 23 chromosomes. The sperm has 23, and the egg has 23. If they merge, they form a zygote, with 46. After nine or so months, you are born.
Because you have 46 chromosomes, you can split this into half and form more sex cells. And the cycle continues.
Enter some freaks of nature.
Freaks of Nature
“The little engine that could” — J. Cole
Flowers can adorn their petals with bright colours to attract insects to feed.
These insects then hop from one brightly coloured flower to another. The pollen they carry from one flower to the next might land in another species of flower. Fertilization can happen in these situations, through natural insect-plant behaviours.
Hybrids will then form from a natural process. But because they are hybrids, they will not have offspring. Unless another special process happens.
Duplication.
Let me bring the point home.
Imagine a human sperm with 22 instead of 23 chromosomes merging with an egg with 23 chromosomes. The zygote will not have 46 chromosomes. It will have 45.
As a result, it will be difficult to have sex cells generated, because they have to be halved. You can’t half 45 chromosomes. Hybrids tend to face this dead-end.
Duplication solves this problem.
If on, the other hand, the 45 chromosomes duplicate, you get an even number of chromosomes. You’d move from 45 to 90 chromosomes. The 45 would then form the sex cells and the 90 the other body cells.
In one fell swoop, the hybrids, through natural processes have a chance to form viable offspring.
Duplication is one of the strongest forces in evolution.
It still happens in plants to date.
A good example is the hybrid between the cabbage and the radish. As if this is not enough, it is not a hybrid between different species — it is a hybrid from different genera.
Here’s the story.
Species are to breed among themselves. The genus provides a double barrier to species — they forbid interbreeding with twice as much vigour.
However, these two genera — the cabbage and the radish, can interbreed. Their offspring, despite having double chromosomes, are sterile. Even though the chromosomes are even numbered, they cannot form new gametes.
Unless they undergo duplication.
Then the body cells can have twice the number of chromosomes and the sex cells have half that. Fertility is then restored.
This outcome was so radical, scientists formed a new genus out of it and consequently, species.
These plants looked in the face of the biological species concept and scoffed. It left the concept asking — who dat?
If you got lost amid this mix-up, don’t worry.
The point is hybrids, our evolutionary misfits, exist and will continue to show up at every evolutionary trial.
Some might not have a distinct place in biology. But they can create their own, as the radishes and cabbages of this world did.
Yes, science is a forbidding land, with many forbidden concepts. It is the duty of scientists to test these forbidden concepts.
From the plant story illustrated, it is not just scientists who test them. Misfits too do the testing.
And like any other organisms, plants tend to avoid annihilation. Even by scientific concepts.
To echo a line from the song and address it to the biological species concept: You failed the mission.
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