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They are not different species in any traditional biological sense. Yes, they look different due to radical changes in developmental pathways. But the differenc
by inciampati 7y ago
They are not different species in any traditional biological sense. Yes, they look different due to radical changes in developmental pathways. But the differences are not actually very extreme genetically. They have almost exactly the same basic biology.
- Retric 7y agoSpecie’s definition predates our knowledge about genetics so it’s an imperfect mapping.
- rjf72 7y agoAs a peer mentioned, species predates genetics. But even when you go for a genetic solution it's not clear. How would you propose this? For instance various studies using different metrics put humans and chimps at between 95% and 99% identical. It's the counter intuitive thing about genetics. But then to further confuse the picture is that genome-wide variation between humans can differ by as much as 0.5%. So clearly drawing a genetic boundary between species seems it's subject to the exact same difficulties as our previous phenotypical classifications.