274 Species
inferences and predicates, and “being a species” is one of these predicates. We predi-
cate of some group that it is a species, and mean by that, that it is held distinct from
other groups; this is all that the biological taxon concept has in common with the
medieval conception of classi catory categories. We need to resist the tendency to
fall back into the older way of thinking about classi cation. There is no universal
grammar or language of nature. John Ray was right, and John Wilkins (the other
John Wilkins) was wrong.
One thing that ought to be clear from this book so far is that the standard stories
and assumptions from the architects of the Modern Synthesis are often simply incor-
rect. What implications might the loss of the essentialist myth have for scienti c
research? We might no longer see it needful to deny there is a human nature, for
example, while remaining true to the understanding that there is no human essence.
This could affect our approach to such topics as evolutionary psychology. We might
begin to see that formal considerations and biological considerations do not imme-
diately inter-translate, and so defuse a good many arguments about classi cation.
We might see that species can be real phenomena in, say, a local ecosystem, without
requiring of them that they play the same explanatory role in every ecotype. We
might stop trying to overgeneralize species concept[ion]s or speciation mechanisms
to all species. This would reduce the heat in a number of biological forums. And we
might just value conceptual clarity and stop trying to employ the dead in support of
modern views, while not overvaluing modern views at the expense of a strawman of
the past. Perhaps this will help biologists appreciate older work without the polem-
ics and caricatures currently in use. And Suidae may evolve feathered forelimbs for
locomotion.
Bibliography
Boodin, John Elof. 1943. The discovery of form. Journal of the History of Ideas 4 (2):177–192.
Ghiselin, Michael T. 1997. Metaphysics and the Origin of Species. Albany: State University
of New York Press.
Hull, David Lee. 1967. The metaphysics of evolution. British Journal for the History of
Science 3 (12):3 0 9 –337.