We are a taxonomizing species

[redbird]

Scientists looking at orca DNA have concluded that the various populations of orca make up at least three species, and that the divergence point is between 150,000 and 700,000 years ago. These populations have previously been referred to as "ecospecies": "species" is a fuzzy concept at best.

This has obvious conservation implications. I am also wondering about a technical point of nomenclature. At the moment, orcas are Orcinus orca. Will one of these three species get that name, or will they all get new ones? There is no holotype (type specimen), so the zoologists can't study that specimen and try to figure out which kind of orca it is.

Comments

[aquaeri]

I'm pretty sure nomenclature will be sorted out fairly easily. Given Orcinus orca was assigned by Linneaus, I imagine that name will go to the North Atlantic species since that's what he was most familiar with, therefore effectively naming. I think there have been similar cases in the past, dealt with in that sort of way. I'd not die of shock if the other two species become Orcinus pacificus and Orcinus australis.

But the first line of the paper's abstract makes me fume: Killer whales (Orcinus orca) currently comprise a single, cosmopolitan species with a diverse diet. No, they don't "currently comprise", they are currently believed to comprise. I really dislike scientists who don't understand the difference between the world and our understanding of the world, particularly when they're writing a paper about that discrepancy.

Sorry, I may be particularly touchy about that at the moment because Fodor & Piattelli-Palmerini's supposed knock-down of natural selection seems to amount to "because we can't be sure exactly what is being selected for, it can't be happening". Oh, go on. You philosophers think you're the first to notice something scientist discuss in the lab every day? Yes, I'll admit I don't understand some of the issues philosophers of science raise, on the other hand, I'm not persuaded philosophers of science understand what scientists do enough to be sure the points they raise are relevant.

[redbird]

Indeed: we are a taxonomizing species (as rysmiel put it in a discussion recently, but the map is not the territory, and the whales do what they do no matter how we label them.