However, it also indicated that people are animals. Charles Darwin While the form of the Linnaean classification system remains substantially the same, the reasoning behind it has undergone considerable change.
For Linnaeus and his contemporaries, taxonomy served to rationally demonstrate the unchanging order inherent in Biblical c reation and was an end in itself. From this perspective, spending a life dedicated to precisely describing and naming organisms was a religious act because it was revealing the great complexity of life created by God.
This static view of nature was overturned in science by the middle of the 19th century by a small number of radical naturalists, most notably Charles Darwin. He provided conclusive evidence that evolution of life forms has occurred. In addition, he proposed natural selection as the mechanism responsible for these changes. Late in his life, Linnaeus also began to have some doubts about species being unchanging. Crossbreeding resulting in new varieties of plants suggested to him that life forms could change somewhat.
However, he stopped short of accepting the evolution of one species into another. Why do we classify living things today?
Since Darwin's time, biological classification has come to be understood as reflecting evolutionary distances and relationships between organisms. The creatures of our time have had common ancestors in the past. In a very real sense, they are members of the same family tree. What makes a bird a bird? What makes humans different from apes? What is the difference between a slug and a snail? In fact, how do you tell the difference between one living thing and another living thing?
Or, think about it this way: You and your friend are different living things. You and a bird are also different living things. But you and your friend are a lot more similar, than you and a bird. How do you explain the magnitude of these differences?
There are more differences between a bird and a human being than two human beings. Toggle Table of Contents Nav What is classification? Levels of classification. Toggle Caption Blue Butterflies are Morpho spp. The orange and yellow butterflies are in the family Pieridae whites, yellows and sulphurs , and come from Brazil, Peru, Malaysia and Indonesia. The colours in these species are from pigments in contrast to the blue in Morpho. The series of specimens set upside down are the jewelled Nawab Polyura delphis.
These specimens come from Malaysia, but the species is also found in India. Levels of classification Taxonomists classify all organisms into a hierarchy, and give them standardised names, that are often Latin or Greek, or derived from other languages and even people's names.
They are, from the most to the least inclusive: Kingdoms is the most basic classification of living things. Back to top. Search website Submit Search. Close Modal Dialog. To understand the whole thing a bit more it is good to look at an example. The red squirrel belongs to the Kingdom Animalia. Each kingdom is divided into groups, and these groups are divided into smaller groups. Each level of group has a special name:. By examining its observable features scientists have determined that the red squirrel belongs to the phylum Chordata, phylum Chordata, class Mammalia and so on.
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