Taxonomy is a mess, and was invented in the first place by a CREATIONIST, not someone thinking along evolutionary lines. If two creatures can make babies that are fully viable and interfertile, then they're the same species.

Keeping in mind that speciation is a process and not an event, of course you're going to find animal groups along a SPECTRUM of how well they can breed with each other, but the cut-off should be set fucking hard at "viable but not fertile" (ie, mules, or that European arthropod group that spawned a parthenogenic new species about 25-30 years ago).

Race? Well, if you can tell the difference between one group and another, and those groups tend to prefer themselves to breed and associate with, you probably have two races. It's more than skin deep, and a race is just a stepping stone on the way to speciation. The first thing to split a species is probably communication and behaviour, with looks (ie, skin or coat colour) just being a visual marker (and there may be scent markers as well.) Races themselves would start out as "evolutionary variants within a population" that simply became common enough to become self-perpetuating (ie, they can find and mate with each other and don't have to settle for breeding with the majority.)

The reason sci-fi has human-alien hybrids is because of the CREATIONIST myth that if something looks the same, then they must be the same (even though Linne erroneously made dogs, wolves and coyotes different species, which they are most certainly not, and the only difference between them is looks and lifestyle - same as humans. But that twit was so afraid of recognizing human closeness with other apes, he deliberately gave them each their own genus because of religious reasons and his own personal sense of taste. Add to that the conceit that anything "smart" has to look like a human, well. It's garbage, and should be classed as "space fantasy" rather than "sci fi".

I mean, seriously, using Linne's own logic and rules, imagine we're "starfish" aliens from some distant planet, studying the creatures of Earth. We take a human from England, and a human from Japan (and let's say the year is roughly 1000 AD, or earlier.) We know that the way they make their hives looks a little bit different, and they come from islands on opposite sides of the planet. They even look a bit different, and like different foods. Are they different species? Let's put them in a cage and find out. Oh, look, the female rejected the male. Oops, the male killed her. Different species! Yep, that's the logic he used to put wolves and coyotes as different species. Even though they can make babies. But dingbats like him don't think that "animals" can be "racist". At the very least, genetics studies are starting to force them to realize where they went stupid. Oh, and there's only one species of rabbit, and one species of hare, but they both have many races. And apparently, North America only has one species of bear.

Taxonomy is a mess, and was invented in the first place by a CREATIONIST, not someone thinking along evolutionary lines. If two creatures can make babies that are fully viable and interfertile, then they're the same species.

Keeping in mind that speciation is a process and not an event, of course you're going to find animal groups along a SPECTRUM of how well they can breed with each other, but the cut-off should be set fucking hard at "viable but not fertile" (ie, mules, or that European arthropod group that spawned a parthenogenic new species about 25-30 years ago).

Race? Well, if you can tell the difference between one group and another, and those groups tend to prefer themselves to breed and associate with, you probably have two races. It's more than skin deep, and a race is just a stepping stone on the way to speciation. The first thing to split a species is probably communication and behaviour, with looks (ie, skin or coat colour) just being a visual marker (and there may be scent markers as well.) Races themselves would start out as "evolutionary variants within a population" that simply became common enough to become self-perpetuating (ie, they can find and mate with each other and don't have to settle for breeding with the majority.)

The reason sci-fi has human-alien hybrids is because of the CREATIONIST myth that if something looks the same, then they must be the same (even though Linne erroneously made dogs, wolves and coyotes different species, which they are most certainly not, and the only difference between them is looks and lifestyle - same as humans. But that twit was so afraid of recognizing human closeness with other apes, he deliberately gave them each their own genus because of religious reasons and his own personal sense of taste. Add to that the conceit that anything "smart" has to look like a human, well. It's garbage, and should be classed as "space fantasy" rather than "sci fi".

I mean, seriously, using Linne's own logic and rules, imagine we're "starfish" aliens from some distant planet, studying the creatures of Earth. We take a human from England, and a human from Japan (and let's say the year is roughly 1000 AD, or earlier.) We know that the way they make their hives looks a little bit different, and they come from islands on opposite sides of the planet. They even look a bit different, and like different foods. Are they different species? Let's put them in a cage and find out. Oh, look, the female rejected the male. Oops, the male killed her. Different species! Yep, that's the logic he used to put wolves and coyotes as different species. Even though they can make babies. But dingbats like him don't think that "animals" can be "racist". At the very least, genetics studies are starting to force them to realize where they went stupid. Oh, and there's only one species of rabbit, and one species of hare, but they both have many races.

Taxonomy is a mess, and was invented in the first place by a CREATIONIST, not someone thinking along evolutionary lines. If two creatures can make babies that are fully viable and interfertile, then they're the same species.

Keeping in mind that speciation is a process and not an event, of course you're going to find animal groups along a SPECTRUM of how well they can breed with each other, but the cut-off should be set fucking hard at "viable but not fertile" (ie, mules, or that European arthropod group that spawned a parthenogenic new species about 25-30 years ago).

Race? Well, if you can tell the difference between one group and another, and those groups tend to prefer themselves to breed and associate with, you probably have two races. It's more than skin deep, and a race is just a stepping stone on the way to speciation. The first thing to split a species is probably communication and behaviour, with looks (ie, skin or coat colour) just being a visual marker (and there may be scent markers as well.) Races themselves would start out as "evolutionary variants within a population" that simply became common enough to become self-perpetuating (ie, they can find and mate with each other and don't have to settle for breeding with the majority.)

The reason sci-fi has human-alien hybrids is because of the CREATIONIST myth that if something looks the same, then they must be the same (even though Linne erroneously made dogs, wolves and coyotes different species, which they are most certainly not, and the only difference between them is looks and lifestyle - same as humans. But that twit was so afraid of recognizing human closeness with other apes, he deliberately gave them each their own genus because of religious reasons and his own personal sense of taste. Add to that the conceit that anything "smart" has to look like a human, well. It's garbage, and should be classed as "space fantasy" rather than "sci fi".

I mean, seriously, using Linne's own logic and rules, imagine we're "starfish" aliens from some distant planet, studying the creatures of Earth. We take a human from England, and a human from Japan (and let's say the year is roughly 1000 AD, or earlier.) We know that the way they make their hives looks a little bit different, and they come from islands on opposite sides of the planet. They even look a bit different, and like different foods. Are they different species? Let's put them in a cage and find out. Oh, look, the female rejected the male. Oops, the male killed her. Different species! Yep, that's the logic he used to put wolves and coyotes as different species. Even though they can make babies. But dingbats like him don't think that "animals" can be "racist".

Taxonomy is a mess, and was invented in the first place by a CREATIONIST, not someone thinking along evolutionary lines. If two creatures can make babies that are fully viable and interfertile, then they're the same species.

Keeping in mind that speciation is a process and not an event, of course you're going to find animal groups along a SPECTRUM of how well they can breed with each other, but the cut-off should be set fucking hard at "viable but not fertile" (ie, mules, or that European arthropod group that spawned a parthenogenic new species about 25-30 years ago).

Race? Well, if you can tell the difference between one group and another, and those groups tend to prefer themselves to breed and associate with, you probably have two races. It's more than skin deep, and a race is just a stepping stone on the way to speciation. The first thing to split a species is probably communication and behaviour, with looks (ie, skin or coat colour) just being a visual marker (and there may be scent markers as well.) Races themselves would start out as "evolutionary variants within a population" that simply became common enough to become self-perpetuating (ie, they can find and mate with each other and don't have to settle for breeding with the majority.)

The reason sci-fi has human-alien hybrids is because of the CREATIONIST myth that if something looks the same, then they must be the same (even though Linne erroneously made dogs, wolves and coyotes different species, which they are most certainly not, and the only difference between them is looks and lifestyle - same as humans. But that twit was so afraid of recognizing human closeness with other apes, he deliberately gave them each their own genus because of religious reasons and his own personal sense of taste. Add to that the conceit that anything "smart" has to look like a human, well. It's garbage, and should be classed as "space fantasy" rather than "sci fi".

I mean, seriously, using Linne's own logic and rules, imagine we're "starfish" aliens from some distant planet, studying the creatures of Earth. We take a human from England, and a human from Japan (and let's say the year is roughly 1000 AD, or earlier.) We know that the way they make their hives looks a little bit different, and they come from islands on opposite sides of the planet. They even look a bit different, and like different foods. Are they different species? Let's put them in a cage and find out. Oh, look, the female rejected the male. Oops, the male killed her. Different species!

Taxonomy is a mess, and was invented in the first place by a CREATIONIST, not someone thinking along evolutionary lines. If two creatures can make babies that are fully viable and interfertile, then they're the same species.

Keeping in mind that speciation is a process and not an event, of course you're going to find animal groups along a SPECTRUM of how well they can breed with each other, but the cut-off should be set fucking hard at "viable but not fertile" (ie, mules, or that European arthropod group that spawned a parthenogenic new species about 25-30 years ago).

Race? Well, if you can tell the difference between one group and another, and those groups tend to prefer themselves to breed and associate with, you probably have two races. It's more than skin deep, and a race is just a stepping stone on the way to speciation. The first thing to split a species is probably communication and behaviour, with looks (ie, skin or coat colour) just being a visual marker (and there may be scent markers as well.) Races themselves would start out as "evolutionary variants within a population" that simply became common enough to become self-perpetuating (ie, they can find and mate with each other and don't have to settle for breeding with the majority.)

The reason sci-fi has human-alien hybrids is because of the CREATIONIST myth that if something looks the same, then they must be the same (even though Linne erroneously made dogs, wolves and coyotes different species, which they are most certainly not, and the only difference between them is looks and lifestyle - same as humans. But that twit was so afraid of recognizing human closeness with other apes, he deliberately gave them each their own genus because of religious reasons and his own personal sense of taste. Add to that the conceit that anything "smart" has to look like a human, well. It's garbage, and should be classed as "space fantasy" rather than "sci fi".