Problems of systematics: Part 1. A critical evaluation of the ≪species problem≫ and its significance in evolutionary biology

Abstract

Abstract The author discusses the significance of the ≪species problem≫ in the context of evolutionary biology and of systematics. He concludes that, contrary to current tendencies, a strongly nominalistic concept of the ≪species≫ is the only tenable one, that species cannot be conceived as individuals and that the species concept is irrelevant for evolutionary biology. Moreover a careful analysis of the species concept falsifies some of the basic tenets of Hennigian and of transformed cladism.