There are 17 species of cottontail rabbits. Each can interbreed with the other 16, and as far as I know all combinations are viable. But this isn't considered a barrier to being considered different species because they aren't considered to do so 'often'. The 'can interbreed' definition is absolutely out of fashion, it interferes with creating new barriers to construction and industrialization.
Neandertal were fucked out of existence and yet no scientist seriously argues they are the species as us. Yet if we Jurassic Parked a few thousand of them up tomorrow, how many years do you think it would take before calling them a different species became a hate crime and got Ye kicked off twitter?
If we applied the same standards to humans, we'd probably have a few dozen species. I mean, christ, the 'unlikely to breed often' metric would let you make a case that Plenty of Fish users are a different species from Grindr users despite a complete overlap of territory and diet.
There are 17 species of cottontail rabbits. Each can interbreed with the other 16, and as far as I know all combinations are viable. But this isn't considered a barrier to being considered different species because they aren't considered to do so 'often'. The 'can interbreed' definition is absolutely out of fashion, it interferes with creating new barriers to construction and industrialization.
Neandertal were fucked out of existence and yet no scientist seriously argues they are the species as us. Yet if we Jurassic Parked a few thousand of them up tomorrow, how many years do you think it would take before calling them a different species became a hate crime and got Ye kicked off twitter?
If we applied the same standards to humans, we'd probably have a few dozen species. I mean, christ, the 'unlikely to breed often' metric would let you make a case that Plenty of Fish users are a different species from Grindr users despite a complete overlap of territory and diet.