Bull Trout

Wolfgang wrote:


Plants......you forgot about plants.


I sure did, how animalcentric of me!

That muddies up the fertile offspring definition even more!

Willi

rw wrote:


The truth is in the middle. Species are "real," but pinning them down
with a simple definition is hard.

(Somewhere off in Cloud Cuckoo Land are those who claim that species are
the immutable creations of God and that evolution doesn't exist.)


Lots of problems occur when people have differing definitions. Hell, you
can't even with someone about something if the other person
defines the words(s) you're using in a different way - not that many of
ROFF's discussions don't fit into that category.

Willi

JR wrote:
Chas Wade wrote:

The Deschutes in Oregon is the home of the Redsides rainbow. It's
actually a rainbow/cutthroat cross that developed long ago when there
was a landslide that blocked upstream migration on the Columbia.

What evidence is there for this?


I had a talk with the guy at the Redsides hatchery not too far from
Maupin last year. I was asking him about the cutthroat I'd caught at
Surf City (a run on the Deschutes), and he explained that it was
actually a Redside, but that some still show the cut on the throat. He
also explained that on the Deschutes the steelhead hatchery uses fresh
wild stock each year.

Chas
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rw wrote:
On 2004-02-07 10:42:13 -0700, Willi said:

There is a spectrum of opinion. On the far right, so to speak, are
people
like Jon who insist on the most rigid and absolute definiton -- if two
organisms can produce fertile offspring then they belong to one
species.
This leads to absurdities, like the lions and tigers example.

Is that more absurd than the natural "in the wild" combination of a
Black lab and an Australian Shepard that produced our dog Emma? The
dogs are all the same species, Dachshund and Great Dane, ****su and
Chow.


On the left are the nominalists who argue that "species" is an
arbitrary,
man-made concept. That is, IMO, the looney deconstructionist wing, who
argue from a political agenda. I don't take them seriously.

They screw up enough that we probably need to take then seriously out
behind the woodshed. ;-)


The truth is in the middle. Species are "real," but pinning them down
with
a simple definition is hard.

Pardon the expression, but Amen.


Chas
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"Skwala" wrote:


You mean other than recognizing that it is more closely related to
Pacific salmon than to Atlantic salmon and that previous theories of
how
it evolved were erroneous?

JR

I haven't read anything on this in years, so correct me if I'm wrong,
but, I
thought the desicion to reclassify was based more on logic, than
physological evidence.

The logic based on assumptions of what we know about the post ice age
history of the pacific region.

Again, I haven't studied the question in any detail, so I may be
assuming
too much myself.


The biologists were kind enough to let us keep the name Rainbow Trout,
but they used the genetic evidence to show the close relationship to
the Pacific Salmon and the disstance from Browns and Atlantic Salmon.
Originally they were trout because they didn't migrate to the ocean,
and not Pacific Salmon because they survive spawning. The modern
science was compelling.

On the other hand, those big beasts in Yellowstone will always be
Buffalo to me whether they're anything like water buffalo or not.
That's a name, not a scientific definition. We need to keep the names.

Chas
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On 2004-02-07 11:32:40 -0700, "Wolfgang" said:

Viruses. Viruses don't have ANY DNA of their own.

Wrong. Retroviruses only have RNA, but typical viruses have DNA.

Species are a fiction.
They can be very useful fictions, but the uses to
which they are put are not always noble or even justifiable.

If I get caught keeping a Cutthroat Trout where I'm only allowed to take
Brook Trout, or shooting an elk when I only have a deer tag, I'll use the
Wolfgang Defense -- species are a fiction! :-)

-----------------------------------------------------
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

"JR" wrote in message ...
snip
You getting to the Owyhee much?

JR

Afraid not, road & weather conditions have been atrocious, plus with the
temps they've had in the area and the flow held down below 10CFS, much of
the water has been hard. However, the last few days have been warmer & I
hope to try it Tuesday as I have some business just past there that day,
with some time to fish before & after. I'm hoping for a good Skwala hatch
there starting in a few weeks.


--
Bob Weinberger
La, Grande, OR

place a dot between bobs and stuff and remove invalid to send email

"rw" wrote in message
. ..
On 2004-02-07 11:32:40 -0700, "Wolfgang" said:

Viruses. Viruses don't have ANY DNA of their own.

Wrong. Retroviruses only have RNA, but typical viruses have DNA.

Typical?

Species are a fiction.
They can be very useful fictions, but the uses to
which they are put are not always noble or even justifiable.

If I get caught keeping a Cutthroat Trout where I'm only allowed to take
Brook Trout, or shooting an elk when I only have a deer tag, I'll use the
Wolfgang Defense -- species are a fiction! :-)

If you get busted keeping cutthroat where only brookies may legally be kept
or shooting elk without a proper license being a snot isn't likely to keep
you from paying a hefty fine and/or going to jail. This is as it should be.

There is no "Wolfgang Defense". I have never needed to defend myself
against a charge of poaching. Trying to avoid dealing with the consequences
of your actions by stating that species are a fiction is likely to have the
same effect as similar efforts do here. That is to say, it won't work.
Eventually you are going to get caught and you WILL have to pay.

Still, when the judge asks whether you understood the regulations, you might
want to try telling him that you don't read that tripe.

Wolfgang
just like you didn't read this.

Chas Wade wrote:

JR wrote:
Chas Wade wrote:

The Deschutes in Oregon is the home of the Redsides rainbow. It's
actually a rainbow/cutthroat cross that developed long ago when there
was a landslide that blocked upstream migration on the Columbia.

What evidence is there for this?


I had a talk with the guy at the Redsides hatchery not too far from
Maupin last year. I was asking him about the cutthroat I'd caught at
Surf City (a run on the Deschutes), and he explained that it was
actually a Redside, but that some still show the cut on the throat. He
also explained that on the Deschutes the steelhead hatchery uses fresh
wild stock each year.

No, seriously, I mean real evidence. You seem to draw all sorts of
conclusions from talks with "a biologist" or "the guy at the hatchery."

JR

"Wolfgang" wrote in message ...

[Willi wrote:]

With your definition, some of the choices that need to be made include:

Actually, those are the exact choices I'm trying to take _out_
of the definition.

Plants......you forgot about plants. How about an apple trunk grafted onto
pear rootstock and later augmented with plum and cherry branches? (It's
doable.....they're all Rosaceae and graft relatively easily.)

Sorry, you'd have to come up with a better example. Grafting has nothing
to do with reproduction. Can apple tree pollen fertilize pear tree
blossoms? I don't know much about plants, but I doubt it. Doctors have
experimented with pig organs in humans, but that doesn't make us the
same species. (although certain individuals might make us think so :-)

As far as single-celled organisms at the varying complexity levels go,
I don't know enough to comment.

Species are a fiction. They can be very useful fictions, but the uses to
which they are put are not always noble or even justifiable.

I think _that's_ something I can agree with.

Jon.