Abstract

The issue of whether species are individuals is now an old one; the literature abounds with arguments, counter-arguments and counter-counter-arguments for their individuality. The question I want to take up in this paper is not whether species are indeed individuals, but what ramifications their alleged individuality has for macroevolutionary theory.According to those biologists who argue for a new theory of macroevolution, the individuality of species is one of the fundamental premises of that theory. For example, Joel Cracraft writes of himself and others thatThe issue of individuality… is at the heart of arguments of those evolutionary biologists who see a need to view the patterns and processes of evolution as being hierarchically arranged into microevolutionary and macroevolutionary levels (1987, p. 332).