This volume provides excerpts and commentary on source material ranging from the Greeks, through the middle ages, to the modern era, on the definition of ""species"". It demonstrates that the logical meaning of species is in direct contrast to the use of kind terms and concepts in natural history and biology, and that the myth that biologists or natural historians were ever essentialists about kinds is mistaken.
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Species what does it mean to be one? This book reviews the more influential answers from ancient times to today, when the modern answers are more diverse than ever before. Wilkins review is an invaluable resource to the continuing discussion.""
--Gareth Nelson, Botany, University of Melbourne
A good deal of current understanding of species and their evolution originates within the Modern Synthesis, the grand overhaul of evolutionary biology which began in the 1930s and became the dominant paradigm for evolutionary biology. The philosophical positioning of the species debate now around on what has been called the Essentialism Story, or, more pointedly, the Essentialism Myth. Here Wilkins states clearly the problem: My target here is the so-called Essentialism Story, largely devised by Ernst Mayr, in which species before Darwin are supposed to have been defined by a fixed and untransmutable essence. I believe this is historically wrong. Bold assertions require good data. This book, Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today, provides relevant information in abundance, a compendium of views on the species question, an anthology of thought from Plato to Cracraft, providing evidence to evaluate the various intellectual threads of the Essentialism Story, perhaps laying it finally rest and pointing the way to progress.""
--David Williams, Botany, Natural History Museum, Londoni
--Gareth Nelson, Botany, University of Melbourne
A good deal of current understanding of species and their evolution originates within the Modern Synthesis, the grand overhaul of evolutionary biology which began in the 1930s and became the dominant paradigm for evolutionary biology. The philosophical positioning of the species debate now around on what has been called the Essentialism Story, or, more pointedly, the Essentialism Myth. Here Wilkins states clearly the problem: My target here is the so-called Essentialism Story, largely devised by Ernst Mayr, in which species before Darwin are supposed to have been defined by a fixed and untransmutable essence. I believe this is historically wrong. Bold assertions require good data. This book, Defining Species: A Sourcebook from Antiquity to Today, provides relevant information in abundance, a compendium of views on the species question, an anthology of thought from Plato to Cracraft, providing evidence to evaluate the various intellectual threads of the Essentialism Story, perhaps laying it finally rest and pointing the way to progress.""
--David Williams, Botany, Natural History Museum, Londoni
About the Author
John Wilkins is a research fellow and lecturer in philosophy at the University of Queensland. His publications include work on cultural evolution, species concepts, and the interface of religion and biology.
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