"[Species] obey, and when they occur are post hoc explained by the biology of populations, interbreeding, selection, drift, and so on, but they are not theoretical objects, any more than planetary orbits are in physics. Species occur, and are explicable in a multiplicity of ways, but they do not follow formally from any theory of biology."
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Species: the evolution of the idea. (2018) CRC Press, p. 345.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_S._Wilkins
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John S. Wilkins
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