Table Of ContentSpecies Problems and
Beyond
Species and Systematics
Phylogenetic Systematics: Haeckel To Hennig, by Olivier Rieppel
Evolution By Natural Selection: Confidence, Evidence and the Gap, by Michaelis Michael
The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics, edited by Andrew Hamilton
Molecular Panbiogeography on the Tropics, by Michael Heads
Beyond Cladistics, edited by David M. Williams and Sandra Knapp
Comparative Biogeography: Discovering and Classifying Bio-Geographical Patterns of a
Dynamic Earth, by Lynee R. Parenti and Malte C. Ebach
Species: A History of the Idea, by John S. Wilkins
What Species Mean: Understanding the Units of Biodiversity, by Julia Sigwart
What, If Anything, Are Species? by Brent D. Mishler
Biological Systematics, by Igor Ya. Pavlinov
Species Problems and Beyond: Contemporary Issues in Philosophy and Practice, by John S.
Wilkins, Frank E. Zachos, Igor Ya. Pavlinov
From Observations to Optimal Phylogenetic Trees: Phylogenetic Analysis of Morphological
Data: Volume 1, by Pablo Goloboff
Refining Phylogenetic Analyses: Phylogenetic Analysis of Morphological Data: Volume 2, by
Pablo Goloboff
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www .crcpress .com /Species -and
-Systematics /book -series /CRCSPEANDSYS
Species Problems and
Beyond
Contemporary Issues in
Philosophy and Practice
Edited By
John S. Wilkins, Frank E. Zachos, and
Igor Ya. Pavlinov
Cover art by Scott Partridge
First edition published 2022
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Contents
Acknowledgement ....................................................................................................vii
Editors’ Biographies .................................................................................................ix
List of Contributors ...................................................................................................xi
Introduction ............................................................................................................xiii
SECTION 1 Concepts and Theories
Chapter 1 We Are Nearly Ready to Begin the Species Problem ..........................3
Matthew J. Barker
Chapter 2 Is the Species Problem That Important? ............................................39
Yuichi Amitani
Chapter 3 ‘Species’ as a Technical Term: Multiple Meanings in Practice,
One Idea in Theory ............................................................................65
Thomas A.C. Reydon
Chapter 4 What Should Species Be?: Taxonomic Inflation and the Ethics
of Splitting and Lumping ...................................................................91
Jay Odenbaugh
Chapter 5 The Good Species ............................................................................105
John S. Wilkins
SECTION 2 Practice and Methods
Chapter 6 Species in the Time of Big Data: The Multi-Species Coalescent,
the General Lineage Concept, and Species Delimitation ................127
Aleta Quinn
Chapter 7 Species Delimitation Using Molecular Data ....................................145
Megan L. Smith and Bryan C. Carstens
v
vi Contents
Chapter 8 Taxonomic Order, Disorder, and Governance ..................................161
Stijn Conix, Stephen T. Garnett, Frank E. Zachos,
and Les Christidis
SECTION 3 Ranks and Trees and Names
Chapter 9 Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics in a Post-Species World .........177
Brent D. Mishler
Chapter 10 The Species before and after Linnaeus: Tension between
Disciplinary Nomadism and Conservative Nomenclature ...............191
Alessandro Minelli
Chapter 11 Taxonomic Hierarchies as a Tool for Coping with the
Complexity of Biodiversity ..............................................................227
Julia D. Sigwart
SECTION 4 Metaphysics and Epistemologies
Chapter 12 The Species Problem from a Conceptualist’s Viewpoint .................245
Igor Ya. Pavlinov
Chapter 13 (Some) Species Are Processes ..........................................................279
John Dupré
Chapter 14 Metaphysical Presuppositions about Species Stability:
Problematic and Unavoidable ...........................................................293
Catherine Kendig
Chapter 15 Critique of Taxonomic Reason(ing): Nature’s Joints in Light
of an ‘Honest’ Species Concept and Kurt Hübner’s Historistic
Philosophy of Science ......................................................................315
Frank E. Zachos
Afterword
Chapter 16 Continuing after Species ..................................................................343
Robert A. Wilson
Index ......................................................................................................................355
Acknowledgement
We are greatly indebted to our contributors for their work in preparing these chap-
ters. In particular, we thank Rob Wilson for his afterword and advice on editing
this volume, although of course, he is not to be held responsible for our errors of
judgement.
We also thank our Editor at CRC Press, Alice Oven, and her staff for prompt
replies to our numerous queries during a difficult time of pandemic and overall assis-
tance with preparation.
vii
Editors’ Biographies
John S. Wilkins
John Wilkins did his PhD at the University of Melbourne.
He has since researched and taught at the University of
Queensland, the University of Sydney, the University of New
South Wales, and the University of Melbourne. He has pub-
lished several books: Species: A History of the Idea (2009)
and its successor Species: The Evolution of the Idea (2018),
Defining Species (2009), and The Nature of Classification
(2013, with Malte C. Ebach), and edited Intelligent Design
and Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2010). John is currently subject coordina-
tor at the University of Melbourne School of Historical and Philosophical Studies,
where he has previously been a research fellow. His interests include species con-
ceptions (obviously), the history of biology, philosophy, and sociology of religion,
phenomena, evolution, taxonomy, and Terry Pratchett’s oeuvre. He has not published
on the last listed.
Frank E. Zachos
Dr Zachos is head of the Mammal Collection at the Natural
History Museum in Vienna, Austria, and an affiliated profes-
sor at the Department of Genetics, University of the Free State,
Bloemfontein, South Africa. His interests include molecular
and morphological approaches in microevolutionary studies
on mammals, with a taxonomic focus on ungulates, particu-
larly cervids, and birds of prey. He carries out research in the
fields of population genetics, molecular (mostly intraspecific)
systematics and phylogeography, developmental homeostasis
and fluctuating asymmetry, as well as conservation genetics and the Quaternary dis-
tribution history of mammals and birds. His theoretical interests comprise species
concepts, the foundations of taxonomy and systematics, and the history and philoso-
phy of (evolutionary) biology.
Igor Ya. Pavlinov
Igor Ya. Pavlinov was, until his retirement in 2018, lead-
ing researcher and the chief of the Mammal Division at
the Zoological Museum at the Lomonosov Moscow State
University. His DrS dissertation was ‘Cladistic approach
in phylogenetics and taxonomy: theoretical foundations of
evolutionary cladistics’ (1997). He is still affiliated with the
Zoological Museum, where he is a curator of mammals. His
principal research interests are in theoretical taxonomy and phylogenetics, systemat-
ics of mammals (mainly rodents), and morphometrics. Igor is the author of several
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