Lucky wrote: Mr. Oragahn wrote: The quote itself doesn't say anything about reproduction. It just says the base model is common. Many species on Earth come from a common ancestor, but branches formed. The quote never alludes to the possibility of Klingons and Vulcans being able to fuck and have healthy hybrid kids.
So no, they're not proven to be like lions and tigers in that quote.
Besides, the writers had that humanoid alien speak of a race as far as his group was concerned, implying that if we wanted to be correct, his group also belonged to a greater group, a species. Yet that's not what is suggested so it has more to do with an authors' mistake.
The definition of species you are using is the basic, but flawed version that is taught to little children. The truth is far more complicated and vague.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology)
Like the writers know anything like that. Besides, the species problem is a topical outlier.
There still is a simple definition of species that works for most cases, and it simply concerns interbreeding and fertility.
In Trek, all those humanoid groups clearly belong to the same species and may be called subspecies.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: It's irrelevant. The relevant point is what happens naturally, genetic tinkering non-withstanding.
However, the quotes you provided prove that we're clearly dealing with compatible races within a superior group, an unnamed species.
It happens naturally on Earth as well. You are using the grade school definition of species rather then the real definition.
Sorry but it fits with the generally used definition. The species problem particularly concerns organisms which are irrelevant to that topic.
Otherwise we would have to consider that the concept of species has quite evolved in Trek to the point that barriers are even more blurred, which is a problem that's already noted as far as the debate goes: new suggestions are said to have solved nothing.
Let's also notice that at no time on the page the concept of race is brought up, despite the fact that some of the revisions regarding the definition of species would actually make it equivalent to that of race.
For that, I took a look at the page about race:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28biology%29
I must say that the first chapter is enlightening, pointing out the characteristics that make subspecies and how they're seen as races in all flora and fauna. Among the criteria, we have geographical isolation, which in the case of planets is particularly obvious. :)
However, they suddenly get totally anal about the same concept of subspecies/Race applied to humans.
In biology, races are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small genetic differences. The populations can be described as ecological races if they arise from adaptation to different local habitats or geographic races when they are geographically isolated. If sufficiently different, two or more groups can be identified as subspecies, which is an official biological taxonomy unit subordinate to species. If not, they are denoted as races, which means that a formal rank should not be given to the group, or taxonomists are unsure whether or not a formal rank should be given. According to Ernst W. Mayr, "a subspecies is a geographic race that is sufficiently different taxonomically to be worthy of a separate name" [1][2]
Within the human species, races are not biological categories that can be found through genetic frequencies. Genetic variation within humans is (1) very small relative to the total and (2) not patterned in such a way as to allow for a small number of natural 'races' to have emerged. For this reason, race cannot be understood as a free-standing taxonomic system because it is always mediated through human actors that are caught up in situations of social location, identity, class, nation, culture, science and sexuality, to name but a few.
It is even more puzzling because the article implies that the "relatively small differences" of "distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species" would somehow still be massively superior to the same "relatively small differences" found in humans as to render improper the use of the term race or for humans.
I don't get it, especially as we're so often told that, anyway, our genotype is immensely close to a great many species, even floral at times. Bananas, bonobos, you name it.
Damn, they can find enough "small differences" to establish two different species such as the
Bullock's oriole (Icterus bullockii) and the
Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula), which are incredibly close to each other (compare the females), so close in fact that scientist long believed they belonged to the same species, the Northern Oriole, but suddenly can't do anything similar when it comes to humans when comparing, say, Han-type Chinese to the Pygmy people? What kind of denial is that? Be they called races or subspecies or even something else, the hell with those people who claim that "genetic variation within humans is [...] not patterned in such a way as to allow for a small number of natural 'races' to have emerged."
That or I must be missing something there?
Geez, no surprise they say wikipedia is unreliable.
Perhaps we should start using some real encyclopedia instead. :D
