DEFINITIONS: Taxonomy and Species.

Note that the terms 'taxonomy' and 'species' both have elementary definitions. However, like so much in life we find that almost everything (except Arithmetic perhaps) can be more complicated than at first perceived, especially in regards to scientific definitions and biophysical definitions in particular. We are talking about the 'Secret of Life', so don't expect the answers to be like Arithmetic. If the reader is satisfied to learn (in the least of detail) that biological taxonomy is 'a systematic way to categorize the myriad of bioforms on Earth', and if he or she finds it sufficient to learn that a 'species' is a theoretic 'minimum unit of a breeding population', ...then one need not continue here. The paragraphs below are about some of the details for these terms as I know and understand them.

About the Taxonomy.

Biological Taxonomy...[Gr. taxis __ "a drawing up in rank and file"]... is the systematic way of categorizing objects by the use of "traits." Classically this has only been the 'visible traits' that can be used to describe an organism. Here, and wherever possible, the traits are unique genomic criteria and their measurable physical aspects. This can often be elementary Laboratory data as obtained from DNA, RNA and Protein Biochemistry assays and other types of analyses.

The average non-scientist citizen uses a version of taxonomic dialogue and definitions when he or she uses such words as 'grand-father', 'great-aunt', 'cousin', 'sibling' and so on. Thus we can think of the science of taxonomy as a method to define a category of 'family tree'. This is what is meant by the terms 'descendency' and 'genetic lineage'. It is a 'tracery of genetic traits' through trans-historical time. This action became decidedly more complicated with the discovery of the many fossilized extinct life forms.

The various taxa of this are the bushes ('splays of representations') and branches (tendencies to splays) of the tree. A group of children having a common set of male/female parents can be assumed to have a common set of genetically important great-great grand-parents,...exactly eight in number. These are the 'common ancestors' of the siblings. Going back farther into the past, it is easy to see that a single male or female individual in the remote past may have his or her genes represented in many thousands of individuals in the current breeding group.

Such designations as 'step-father' can also complicate a variably traceable human lineage. But as far as the perspective of the genomic mechanics for all humans as 'Mankind' is concerned,... this and these 'common-names' for familial sets are not all so important. It is the measurable gene frequencies and phenotypes in populations that matter.

Although it is decidedly anthropocentric, and perhaps so 'to the max', humans recognize something called 'good-genes' as 'opposed to bad-genes'. Nature has little concerned for such issues of 'quality'.

We want a system that shows how familial lines are testable and related and in accordance with protein inventories by the manner in which the genes are conveyed in populations to define a single specie. And the chemical methods provide this certainty or, in certain situations a statistically valid measure of it.

For a long time there seemed to exist little or no logic in how certain trait-results appeared in progeny. And the astounding or pathologic surprises were attributed to all sorts of superstitious notions. For example, in Midieval times, if a woman might run across a hare (a type of long-eared rabbit) or would get her foot caught in a hare's lair,...there was a belief that she would give birth to a child with a 'Hare-lip', a genetic deformity of the clef-palate and lip musculature. Cleft-palate is often a 'hereditary defect or trait' which means we know it has appeared in the family tree in the past. (In some cases the un-fused cleft palate can be caused by other gene relevant developmental scenarios.)

In Midieval times if a child was born with hare-lip, then maybe it was the Mother's fault for not being superstitiously preventive enough or attentive to religious or family duty. She could have followed certain practices of the time or consulted with the soothsayer or whatever to have prevented the problem from appearing. Providing apothecary potions, or more secretive spells and amulets could earn some money in ancient times and in all ancient societies, so there was a lot of peer-pressure to remain superstitious. In Midieval Europe, for example, if the expectant mother feared a Hare-Lipped child was coming,...she would place two magic stones or her old-shoes into the rabbit's lair,... and by this superstitious action her child might be spared of this dreaded disfiguring (inherited) syndrom. If a spell or remedy or potion worked 51% of the time, there must be Truth in it,... or so it was believed. Remarkably, many people believed a more modern version of this myth well into the modern era, and would think that a rabbit crossing the road in front of their horse or buggy might also 'cause' Hare-Lip in a new-born. The Demons and Devils are always up to no good and the pious must be ever vigilant, attentive to proper ritual, supplicant and supportive of the so-called 'Authorities'. No one knew about atoms and molecules in those days.

In very ancient times this rather harmless inherited physical trait and many others may have even had more grotesque scenarios associated with it since such matters were often thought to be the work of evil witches, the devil or demons. Affected infants were quite probably ritually sacrified or killed at birth when the anomalies appeared at birth. Some of these sceanarios may have lead to all sorts of myths and verabalized stories before the invention of writing.

There is one theory that the Biblical story of Pharaoh's ordering the death of all first-born male children during the time of Moses, may have implicated some of these superstitions about an appearance of new genetic 'fault' in neonates. Sometimes infants are born with tails, and this may have been most upsetting to a people who often personified their gods and goddesses as half-animal and half-human. If there is any truth in the pharaoanic efforts to prevent a genetic syndrome in the masses, then maybe the king was not all the evil the traditional view has supposed. We cannot know the absolute Truth about much of this. Mass extinctions whether natural or human-caused always do have an effect upon the eventual genetics of the population. But only the Nazi Scientist of the Jewish Death Camps have ever made any primitive effort to measure and study this in any manner in relation to human groups; and their efforts were perverse, inhumane and so invalid. The Nazi theoretic supposed a Master Race could be devised by eliminating certain traits deemed un-worthy of survival.

In animal husbandry, it is and has been a common 'culling' practice to prevent the spread of any number of diseases, birth-defects, inferior conformations and plagues in history by instigating a mass extinction scenario as a 'cure' or strategy in order to defeat the Devil.

In Midieval times witches could be generated by the work of the Devil or else they could be born as such. To prevent the demonic genetics of witchcraft and the propagation of witchcraft in Midieval times it was supposed all the suspected evil people could be permanently eliminated from society if enough were burned at the stake. Perhaps as many as several million were killed. Some accounts claim as many as nine-million over several centuries were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Eventually, all that was required was to be accused. It became such an expense for the courts that the accused would have to pay for their own execution and their estates were usurped by the State-Church to increase the efficiency of de-witching the world. The Church-State began to profit greatly by its clean-up efforts by its so-called 'moral-majority'. We can only say that since some more rational minds knew the inhterited syndromes were not the devil's creation or the work of 'gods and goddesses' or witchcraft,.... there was a need for some sort of more reliable and practical explanation of inherited characters good and bad. There was a need for the 'Age of Reason' and Science.

The need for such better explanations was also important in regards to horticultural and animal husbandry scenarios were better hybrid crops and herds meant more profits and fewer problems to contend with. No telling how many people in history were made more ill or harmed by the myriad of superstitious notions attending the appearances of less than ideal 'traits' in the next generations of both people and animals they associated with.

This 'certainty' about what the genetics is doing we note has a more or less first-ordered resolution when we say sibling-X has parent-pair A and B. Whatever defines the testable trait-set of the sibling group has to have its primary (first-ordered) origin in the parent-set. Thus, there is a dichotomous taxonamic tracery that is useful to trace back in time, and this must 'begin' with the parents. And from them, one-fourth effect must have come to the children via the grand-parents and so on back through the generations. It is not a difficult valid notion. Every individuals has inherited something that makes him unique,...and also some stuff that mush make him one of the group off all people of category Z as well as just a member of the 'all people group'. Evolutionary genetics goes several steps farther back into time and describes how the group of 'all people' must have had a common ancestor with the group of all extinct people and so much that is obviously similar in the fossil records to humans to warrant the name 'humanoid or hominid'. Some of the traits these and the more recent ancient people had have become 'extinct' and lost among us, the survivors. So, it is good to know how genetics works because we would like to not lose certain traits and we would like to acquire or conserve others. It was a major achievement for mankind to have a glimpse into the molecular basis of inheritance as revealed by the likes of Mendel and Darwin with which the role of alleles, gene dominance/recessiveness and natural-selection became known.

Yet, it remained an elusive problem to assess how the 'permutation' and 'combinagorics' of traits seemed to manifest, mutate, or skip generations, or seem to become extinct in descendencies altogether. Elementary gene dominance and recessiveness could not explain everything, the chromosomes were more partitionable and dynamic than first thought to cause something called 'recombination'. And recombination could more probably cause something called 'mutations' which were sometimes the big surprises in offspring genetics.

Eventually biological and chemical Science discovered that there were other highly relevant criteria encoded in certain molecules and proteins that could also be known as equally distinct and dichotomous and combinagoric. These causes could manifest themselves in a single new generation and therefore be correlated to the haploid contribution of the parent members. (as a minimal parentage-relevant inheritance effect)

An example of this first-ordered effect could indeed be a recessive versus a dominant expression of a set of proteins or an elementary presence or lack of a set or complex of proteins. The parents themselves must have had such proteonomics by virtue of their own trans-historical inheritance or the apparent manifestations could be variously metabolically compromised or enhanced, suppressed, delayed,...etc., by virtue of the elementary metabolic criteria of a physiological molecular dynamics. With this new 'focus' upon the mechanisms in the cells to define the genetic expressions in future progeny,...gone were the notions of the enduring efficacy of the 'visible-phenotypic traits' previously used to define bioform uniqueness and even individuality. The naturalists in the field equipped with this new view of inheritance would wonder what might be the molecular specifics of all that they had categorized by the visible traits alone and their efforts to define the 'Tree of Life' took on an entirely new approach which would be one much less dependent upon the classical visible clues. There was now the reality of a molecular dynamically base systematics to classify and categorized all that lives on Earth.

These 'visible clues' and characterized had been the taxonomic criteria of all previous taxonomic systems (more or less). And this new and revolutionary dynamical DNA-based proteonomics has now become more of what the definition of what a 'gene' is, and as such all of this has had to become integrated into the ways and means to categorize living things in a logical way. A gene is the codification for one or more structural and functional proteonomic inheritable constituencies. This new taxonomic systematics may be 'logical' but sometimes it is not all so sensible except to those well-versed in protein biochemistry. It is not all so 'sensible' sometimes for the layman because it is the sub-visible realities of moleculs that are the subject material, not the appearances in the field.

One of the earliest discoveries that provided support for this refined definition the agency of inheritance called 'a gene' came with the work on an inherited syndrome in infants called 'PKU'.
Phenylketonuria (PKU) is a genetic inborn error of metabolism that is detectable during the first days of life with appropriate blood testing (newborn screening). The absence or deficiency of a single enzyme is implicated and this is responsible for metabolic processing the essential amino acid phenylalanine; this is what characterizes PKU. With normal enzymatic activity, phenylalanine is converted to another amino acid (tyrosine), which is then utilized by the body. However, when the phenylalanine hydroxylase enzyme is absent or deficient, phenylalanine abnormally accumulates in the blood and is toxic to brain tissue. The result is pathology. Thus we associate a 'One Gene' idea with the Enzyme-protein that is involved in this syndrome. There are many similar 'inborn errors of metabolism' and they all involve proteins and enzymes and the complex patternings and pathways of these to become synthesized, allocated and metabolized-eliminated.

At first in the 1960s the geneticists and molecular biologists were satisfied with the idea of a 'One-Gene...One-Protein' Hypothesis. But the eventual elucidations proved this to be too simplistic. It is still sufficient however to think in terms of 'One-Gene' and a corresponding 'One-Protein-Complex or Enzyme-Complex' systematics.

Back to the issue of taxonomy. We find in the ways and means to classify related organisms, the idea that groups of similar examples either have a gene or lack it (as with the PKU Gene). Only physical criteria are generally relevant and such difficult-to-measure notions as 'beautiful' versus 'ugly',...or... 'stupid' versus 'smart'... or similar idealized-aesthetic but non-physical notions are not admissible in scientific taxonomy,... or such are to be avoided in allegiance to the Scientific Method.

It is true that complexes of proteins can indeed contribute to some of these less than being entirely physical trait notions, but it is not correct to associate a 'one-gene' idea with such. We are doing well to trace the genetics of something more refined and specific as 'eye-color' which some may find any rain-bow hue a preferred manifestation over any other via 'non-scientific' prejudices, opinions, and etc. The 'arguments' of an empiric taxonomic system are becoming evermore metrical-measurable and with increasing statistical precision as with the PKU example which proved to involve only a single enzyme-protein (all enzymes or proteins defined by DNA).

Clearly, there can be debate about what should and should not be a valid taxonomic criterion or criteria-set, so scientists are glad elementary biochemical methods can save the day with certain generally indisputable physical assessments as discussed here. Some of the best criteria can still be 'statistical' and range-data do apply on occasions. Human-error also remains a problem, but this is also being decreased as a factor in taxa and clad relegations and identifications. Even a spelling error, for example, can lead to some confusion (especially in surveying the ancient systems). A good taxonomist is generally a 'tidy soul' that likes to have everything in its proper 'meaningful' place. I guess there could some neurosis in this, but that's another story.

Taxonomists define something (a tool or model-form) called the TAXON, (plural 'TAXA'). The primary elemental tool of the taxonomist is the taxon and sets of taxons by which a collective 'taxonomic system' is generated. Another more refined notion is that of a 'CLAD'.

Cladistics is a refined taxonomic system that seeks the binary and boolean efficacies that may be manifest in Nature. This is what is meant by the term 'common ancestor' and the bushes and branches of a lineage as mentioned above. Currently, Clads and Taxons are rarely absolute (optimum binary-boolean) and are generally always open for more refinement as the science gets better.

In lieu of encountering any 'little green Martians',....We have no problem considering the classic 'taxa' and taxonomic distinction called "plants versus animals." As an example of the classification difficulties, we are surprised to find some of the actively motile animal-like flagellated green algae organisms are sort of 'hybrids' of plants and animals. And some of the generally animal-like tentacled-trapping and variously motile marine coral organisms are variously photosynthetic and use light and light-absorbing pigments as do plants. The distinction between elementary plant and animal criteria becomes sketchy. And, what is a greater surprise... in the mystery of how entropy-extropy works,... some species of plants synthesize what was previously thought to be solely estrogen mammalian hormones!

This remarkable fact was the eventual explanation for the loss of breeding fertility in ruminant mammals that grazed on Trifolium (clover) plants. The clover in the pasture was acting like a birth-control agent in the herd. The biochemical and genetic distinction between plants and animals prove to have some interesting and surprising 'fuzzy-logic' circuits since there are common genes for the manifestations in widely diverse bioforms. That this means all of these organisms had a common ancestor remains a hot-topic in the evolutionary sciences. But it is certainly not the work of devils and demons, as minds would have once thought. There could have been a separate and independent chemo-ontogenies causing some plants to benefit from having mammalianoid hormones.

The incidence of a common pigment utilization of electro-magnetic radiation (sun-light) with corals and plants probably does indicate a common ancestor but more studies need to be done to define these taxa and this is very difficult with so much of the contributing elements being extinct. So, we have to be careful and not think our system is all so 'absolute' when we compartmentalize and name things ('poly-nomialize'); we may have to revise all the hard work. A generalized 'algebraic approach' to cladistical taxonomy is a worthy goal in so far as this can conserve and maintain its biotechnical specificities. It would be nice to also have this jive with some of the older canonical works that are useful in field research. Naturalists do not yet have a Star-Trekian 'Tri-corder' device to scan for the biochemical subtleties of bioform distinctions,... and the 'Yellow-Bellied Red-Throated Sap-Sucker' observational criterion-methods will probably be around for a long time . As far as demonstrating the relatedness of all that lives on Space-Ship-Earth,... We would like to pass on the most optimized 'version' we can devise knowing it will have to under-go improvement.

The System:
A 'dichotomous taxonomic system' uses two names for every taxon at the basic identifying level. There is currently some indication that a trinomial system may be in order wherever there is great diversity per chromosomal count-inventory (Karyotype). In zoology and the various branches of zoology including paleo-anthropology, this base-level dichotomous taxon is comprised of the Genus and specie designation-names.
The methods of a dichotomous taxonomy were first explored and developed by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778),...the "Father of Taxonomy."

The idea that traits can be hard-copy-visible, and also more technically molecular contributed to the concept of 'pheno-type' versus 'geno-type' as itself a binomial strategy for the systematics.
In the assessment of genetically inherited traits, scientist have to rely upon two categories of all possible trait-relevant assessments. These can be phenotypic and-or genotypic. Again, a phenotypic trait is generally one that is apparent or visible, and therefore a great deal of the older taxonomic work is replete with such resolutions that preceded any laboratory methodology. Consider Darwin's famous analysis of the finch-like bird's bill and Mendel's height studies of legumes whence gene dominance and recessiveness was first studied. The earliest works in genetics had to rely on the 'observables'. The sub-visible molecular aspects had to await the new developments in biochemistry.

In contrast to the more or less visible phenotypic traits, ...the genotypic traits (or inherited molecular genetic data) are less obvious and generally require laboratory methods to ascertain. (Some phenotypic traits like the entomological taxa criteria of the of tiny insects can be only 'viewed' with the microscope, and with viruses the electron microscope is used). Currently viruses are classified with difficulty and via reference to their vector or host-vehicle and also the electron-microscopic appearances and form in addition to certain immuno-assay data and protein composition criteria. A systematics which would totally classify the all the Viruses by virtue of biochemical criteria alone is, in my opinion, a worthy goal of no less importance than that of elucidating the Human Genome.

The absence or presence of one or more associated proteins, protein-complexes or some anomaly of these which can manifest as an inherited genetic disease. Some genetic diseases and syndromes can only be diagnosed before becoming visibly detectable or 'active' by lab methods which search-out the genetic basis of the disease at the molecular level. There is hope in this process that methods will eventually be devised for both a better diagnoses, treatment and prevention or cure of these 'inborn-errors' of metabolism.

Other scenarios can implicate the 'bad-gene' scenario.
An individual may be the recessive 'carrier' of a the gene which can pass silently un-noticed to future progeny to cause miserable illness or death. Some genes function in elaborate developmentally related biochemical circuitry such that they seem to be either 'turned-on and turned-off' under-certain situations or else they may manifest only during adulthood or later years. Other genes are 'sex-linked' and are only passed on to females or males in a group along with the other possible complexities.

All of these scenarios make the ultimate explanation of human genomics-proteonomics 'function and expression' exceedingly complicated; these actual details of the genomics may be said to be even more complicated than the recent 'elucidation' of the Human Genome itself which was indeed a rather formidable task, so much so it has been called another 'Wonder of the World' achievement. Mankind may be centuries involved in refining the details. In all of this 'molecular dynamics' one cannot help but contemplate the concept of the pathology-free generic species resolution which can be manifestly encoded in a genomic systematics. We may not ever know a 'Utopia' but we can imagine and work for a world which is liberated from the several thousands of genetic syndromes that cause un-told suffering, decreased quality of life, and expense. In reference to the common domesticated dog 'Canis familiaris', breeders are working with some breeds to eliminate the gene for such syndromes as hip-dysplasia. This condition comes later in the animals life and can lead to much pain and crippling. It can be tested for and, to be loyal to the breed certification programs and clubs, the affected animals are not bred. Eventually all the progeny of a lineage-group will be free of this tragic condition. Similar efforts to constrain human transmission of genetic misery are more politically complex than what exists with domesticated animals. And with this we must ask..."..if indeed we can create a future version of our species which is free of so many 'bad-genes',...would it technically be the same specie?" There are no easy answers to such questions that implicate the power of technology when humans will be at the helm of that power. All we can accurately predict is that it would and should be a world free of the inherited syndromes made every bit as extinct as the dinosaurs. It is a world we have great difficulty imagining because we are so used to the 'bad-genes' and their effects perhaps. That's it.

Meaning of Species.
The concept of what a specie is and does is intimately correlated to issues of breeding efficiency, fertility criteria and what examples of species members get to be represented in the lineage either by natural or synthetic constraints and experiments.

In regards to the 'animals' we can usually think of all mammals as either 'male or female.' Although, this is a common and useful categorization strategy at certain 'levels of relevance',....it does not tell us much about the species distinctions among larger groups of organisms very similar in appearance but of different species designations (as with Darwin's Finches);...i.e., the criteria that define fertile reproducing groups that cannot breed with other fertile groups with many phenotypically common traits.

A 'Rule or Law' of defining the taxonomically well defined 'biological unit' we know enspeciation can achieve is this:___it should either by natural or synthetic constraints conserve the concept of a 'one-species per single-set of health-optimized fertility criteria'. It should be one species with an efficient and natural reproductive capacity. It must be something called 'fertile'.
The propagation of un-healthy genes serves no one or no thing in transhistorical time as far as humano-centric socio-economics is concerned. Our anthropocentric bias for "good-versus-bad" genes does have some merit as we perceive the 'bad-genes' as a health-threat for all concerned. In theory, such negative genes may serve to benefit certain other biological agents of the co-enspeciated florum,...the viral and microbial parasites, symbionts and commensals we live with and even need for certain metabolic reasons, but this is far from being a testable notion at present.

The offspring of humans (and some domestic animals) should be desired, hoped-for, wanted and placeable in the society. We should have responsible dominion of bioforms. This values something called the 'Quality of Life'. This is not a moral or religious 'decision' to dogmatize into biology, science, social-action or religion. It is only common sense and pain-relief for the future masses. What better gift could a generation have for its future children than a healthier population? Sure we shall debate and ethicalize what is or what is not the tenuously 'healthy-or-pathologic' details at some future point, ...but in the mean while there are the major problems which have been inherited for thousands of years, and we can beat these and win. T

This Rule of One-Species, One-Fertility Criterion,.... if it had worked consistently would have made taxonomy greatly simplified, however as a matter of statistics, some seemingly intra-enspeciation matings can and do generate viable fertile offspring,...so, we had to admit notions of 'sub-specie' (with animals) and 'varieties or types' (with plants), and other ways to refine the taxa. If they do and can (make babies),... then they must be closely related enough to warrant being united into either a single enspeciational taxon or a more genomically complex taxon. In some cases matings are unsuccessful for reasons remote to the genetics; there can be various pathologies, tissue-dysplasias and historical trauma criteria, low sperm-count, and so on. In some scenarios the mating will not produce conception because of allergy and immunity criteria, which correlate to alternative genomic complexities.

Therefore these definitions (of what constitutes a single valid specie) do not work in the corollary;...i.e., if a couple cannot make a viable progeny,... it does not imply that the mating is 'intra-enspecific or intra-specific' when 'inter-specific' matings should have a high frequency of fertile results. Again, there are a multitude of reasons for mating infertility scenarios other than restriction genetics.

Summary.
So, in a general and testable way, what demarcates a SPECIES is a well-defined "unit of bioform proteonomic regenerative 'boundary criteria'". The proteins of a species 're-boot themselves' to define a future progeny-generation and there are 'components and parts' to all of this. The Genes. The individual members of a species are units of the species propagation systematics and there can be a 'range-varibility' of this, sometimes a great range genomic-expression variability. We define 'Bell-Curves' for the Norms, and witness the extremata in relation to a multiple of criteria assessments. Most of these facts are now entirely the subject matter of biochemistry. The domestic dog is about as variable as it gets.

The common house Dog (Canis familiaris)is interesting to geneticist. Who would have ever imagined that the tiny Chihuahua and the massive Saint Bernard animals were of the same species if these had roamed the planet in the Pre-Paleolithic Era along with the wolves. The varieties or 'breeds' of Dogs have arisen by selective breeding and isolated carefully tended and constrained populations where human intervention has worked to (generally) improve and optimize certain traits. All examples are descended from an ancestral population which is also the ancestor of the Wolf-like canines. As with humans, there are extinct common ancestors of all modern hybrid Canines.

The "'set' of all modern canines" which includes the Chihuahua and the Great Dane or Saint Berard Breeds;... and the 'set' of all modern humans which might include all thirty-seven inch Caucasian midgets and seven-foot-tall Watusi Africans.... are both groups of single species designations we call "the modern Canines and Mankind",...and there are any number of other 'phenotypic' and 'genotypic' taxonomic-cladistic range-criteria as well that define 'sub-sets'. Again, both Humans and Dogs are about as genetically diverse as any species can be.

On the other account, ...some species seem to demonstrate little variation within the boundary criteria and transhistorical genomic patternings. Ants,for example, and to most casual observers, all seem very similar as individuals per-species designation and over time (aging ants?). There is sexual and non-clonal propagation, so there must not be much recombination in the genes. They seem to lack individuationalism-diversity. However, with a microscope, some of these species also show ranges of individual uniqueness. With protein biochemistry, they demonstrate more variance. Perhaps only the ants themselves know how great their individuality is, ...but from the human perspective they are almost models of lack of individuality. Army-like.

Other proteonomic surprises can include albino crows and albino gorillas. Two-headed humans, reptiles and other mammals. Freaks.

As the Zoologist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." And evolution makes since best in relation to the on-going accruing comprehension we have of the genetic molecular dynamics. Understand something called Biological or 'Bio-chemistry' and you understand evolution. Start at the beginning and go to the end.

Scientist name a species by using two words, one for the GENUS and another for the SPECIES (as with 'Canis familiaris'). The names use Greek and Latin combining forms. There is some necessary variation of this tradition to include 'sub-species' , types and varieties in reference to certain problem species studied. With modern biochemical taxonomic practices, we can expect new ways to paradigm species to be devise, some may eventually use 3-D holographic iconographic models which also correspond to advance co-models of ecosystems. In dynamical evolving ecological 'Phase-Space' a species can become abstractly modeled as any number of alternative mathematical and graphic ways,...as long as we know what we are talking about and the 'context' of the alpha-numeric set.

And Biology is more than the birds and the bees. It is also Medical Science and the non-hocus-pocus real 'cures', The 'Bio-Tech Revolution', your rose-garden, your seasonal sinus condition, and any number of other Sciences, endeavors and activities-actions and re-actions. It is dynamical Universe implicating Carbon. It is nothing on Venus (as far as is known) and it could possibly be something on Mars,... we don't know yet. It may exist no where else in the Milky Way Galaxy. The Bio-Technical Sciences are the metaphorical offspring of Aristotelian-Mendelian Categorical Inheritance Biology. Biology is so very good for us,...we cannot and should not live without it and all it has to teach us.

Link to more concepts of enspeciation (Sex, Fertility, ...) Under-Construction.

Link to the chronofiles for the BEFORE THE COMMON ERA.

Link to the chronofiles for the COMMON ERA.