Should We Just Call Dog Breeds a Different Species?

Jamie found an amusing bit this morning on Scientific American where the author proposes that dog breeds are different species. Now some of you might recoil when you hear this suggestion, but if you read the article to see why he makes this suggestion I suspect you'll crack a smile and appreciate the elegance of the solution.

Comments

Dogism

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You know what's funny? Dogs know dogs. They can be big, small, tall, round, thin, with or without tails, brown, red, white, spotted, yellow, shaggy, short haired, long legged, squat, etc, etc, etc. There is a massive amount of variation on display within the dog family.

But despite it all, dogs know dogs. Upon seeing another, they'll wag their tails or bark for a rotweiller the same as they would for a terrier. They'll all roam about in their little packs, somehow instinctively knowing they they naturally should.

And yet, if I have a man with different skin colour, or even simply different clothing, other men will consider his life worth less than even the smallest dog.

Makes you think.

Re:Dogism

[Jurily]

Bah, I'd fuck a nice asian girl any day. What's your point?

Some people here would fuck anything that moves. What's your point?

Intelligent Design

[rshol]

Just remember if you argue that dog breeds are different species, especially the case of the mastiff and chihuahua, or the teacup yorkie and newfoundland, these different species are verifiably the result of intelligent design. Selection was involved, but not natural selection.

Re:And not entirely correct

[TrumpetPower!]

It gets even better.

You cannot produce viable offspring with a chimpanzee. Neither could your great-great-great-grandparents produce viable offspring with that chimpanzee’s great-great-great-grandparents. But, go back enough generations, and your nth-great-grandparents gave birth to an individual whose far-distant offspring was that chimpanzee. Pick any other two organisms, and the same holds — it’s just that you have to go a little farther back in time to find the last common ancestor between, say, a squid and a butterfly.

We are all members of a single ring species that encompasses all of life on Earth. It’s just that the ring is separated by time, rather than geography or physiology.

And now you know the nutshell definition of the Theory of Evolution.

Cheers,

b&