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COMMENTS ON THE SEARCH FOR A ‘PERFECT SYSTEM’
Author(s) -
Stebbins G. Ledyard
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.2307/1218465
Subject(s) - discontinuity (linguistics) , variation (astronomy) , point (geometry) , biology , evolutionary biology , zoology , genealogy , mathematics , physics , history , geometry , astrophysics , mathematical analysis
Summary A fairy story on biosystematics making the point that there do not exist in nature groups of individuals which must be grouped in only one way as objective, uncontestable species. On the other hand, species are not purely subjective groupings, carved out of an amorphous welter of varying populations. The organized systems of populations, forming an irregular variation pattern, is characterized by modes of similar variants separated by larger or smaller gaps of discontinuity. The best system for any group is one synthesized from data of all kinds.