Abstract

The species problem is the longstanding puzzle regarding the nature of species. This paper aims to describe how biologists experience little communication breakdown when they have different conceptions of species. For this purpose, I analyze two debates on species and speciation between Guy Bush and Jerry Coyne & H. Allen Orr. Although they have radically different ideas on species, they experience little communication difficulty. I will argue that this is because they implicitly agreed on the referent of the group of organisms being addressed and possible causal factors of the speciation process. This analysis confirms a leading account in the general philosophy of science on the way in which scientists avoid the incommensurability threat.