The Earth Species
While it’s common to think of our biosphere as consisting of numerous species, biologists have long struggled with figuring out what the hell they mean by the word. But there is a potential definition that works quite well.
The Issue
It’s a common idea that there are numerous species on Earth. Humans are separate from ants, which are separate from bananas. It seems reasonable. But it’s really not. There are numerous problems with the concept of “species” in scientific terms, and this issue has resulted in numerous arguments between biologists.
To reach a viable definition of “species” one has to look at how we all came to be. The current understanding of how every organism in existence came to be is that we all came from one cell that began to divide and evolve. At the same time, the differentiation between species is largely arbitrary. There is no clear division between one species and another. It is a progression. Indeed, attempts to define “species” in a straightforward biological sense is called “the species problem.”
Sometimes biologists look at groups of organisms that are separated by their inability to reproduce, but even then, it’s only useful as a way to talk about these…
