Human, almost human: how many human species are there?
The debate on the question "How many human species are there?" may never be resolved. Leaving aside the theological and political aspects of the question, this paper analyses three dimensions of the problem – metaphysical, biological and technical – using an approach that is both epistemol...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Société d'Anthropologie de Paris
2022-10-01
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| Series: | Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/bmsap/10173 |
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| Summary: | The debate on the question "How many human species are there?" may never be resolved. Leaving aside the theological and political aspects of the question, this paper analyses three dimensions of the problem – metaphysical, biological and technical – using an approach that is both epistemological and historical. On the metaphysical aspect, we start with the work of Linnaeus and Buffon to explore the issues that arise when we assume that the word "human" designates not a species but a genus, and that this genus includes more than one species. We also explore the difficulty of providing a physical (anatomical) criterion to recognise what is human: it is still unclear whether anthropology should rely more on the hand, on the brain or on the use of tools, or on a combination of all three. In addition, the choice of taxonomic divisions and the names adopted is often controversial as they often reflect implicit beliefs among anthropologists, for example that humans are the apex of primate evolution. On the biological aspect, the counting of species is problematic insofar as the concept of "species" does not only refer to taxa, but also to taxonomic rank (as opposed to variety). Besides, taxonomists’ approaches are almost ritualistically divided between "lumpers" (who "lump" species together to reduce the number of species as much as possible) and "splitters" (who will often promote subspecies to the rank of species). Finally, while new methods such as cladistics and palaeogenomics are contributing promising tools and new results, it seems unlikely that they will be able to resolve all the difficulties involved in the classification and denomination of human species. Hence, the question "how many human species are there?", exciting as it may sound, seems doomed to remain unanswered in a necessarily open and never-ending debate. |
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| ISSN: | 1777-5469 |