Re: Perfect Organisms
- To: Multiple recipients of list AROID-L
- Subject: Re: Perfect Organisms
- From: S*@aol.com
- Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 19:09:51 -0500 (CDT)
In a message dated Mon, 8 May 2000 9:47:52 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Iza &
Carol Goroff <goroff@idcnet.com> writes:
<<How that applies to an individual living being is that
such is an inadequate representative of the principles defining the type. The
principles are the truth which one should seek, looking past the specimen.
Hmmm...the closest thing I can think of to this in actual practice is the
breed standard for purebred animals. Of course, no living Havana Brown cat
ever matches perfectly the breed standard; it is judged by how closely it
approaches that standard. The question is, does anything like this occur
in talking of species? What I mean is, given the description of, say,
Philodendron bipinnatifidum, do we compare a given specimen of that species
to the decription, and judge how closely it approaches the "standard"?
Jason Hernandez
Naturalist-at-Large
