Jim,

I think it has to do with the fact that humans (and other animals, for
that matter) have until very recently lived in a world that was limited
in both time and space so that the time-space fragments of "species"
encountered in their daily lives were for all practical purposes discrete
entities.

Gene Hunn.

On Thu, 29 Jun 1995, James West wrote:

> There's an interesting side to the argument about species that hasn't
> entered into the discussion so far, but is in the foreground for the
> historian of ideas, including scientific ideas. It is the almost absurd
> prevalence in most people's minds, and all of our minds some of the time,
> of the idea that nature must present a picture of distinct species, with
> hybrids and hard-to-separates being anomalies. Superficially, the
> generally easy distinguishability of species supports this notion - which
> at least in its strongest form isn't really compatible with the concept of
> evolution, since every "species" is susceptible to evolutionary change, if
> not actually engaged in it. In other words, we tend to treat an inherently
> unstable picture, as long as it presents some analyzable regularities and
> the rate of change is slow in relation to the human time-frame, as if it
> were inherently stable. This quirk is characteristic of a great deal of
> human thinking, not just biological.
> _________________________________________________________________________
> JAMES WEST Univ. of Washington Box 353580 Seattle WA 98195 206-543-4892
>
>