Expert: Dana Krempels, Ph.D. - 8/26/2007

Question
Hello,
first let me apologize for the recent questions regarding the classification of zygote.  That was my fault.
I have been 'debating' folks on a pro-life debate forum, and one individual imparticular insisted that biologically a zygote is classified as a member of it's species.
When I googled the question your answer to someone regarding  single cells, and phenotypes came up as a result.
I realize that the question of when does 'life' begin is a philosiphical, and has no one valid answer.
 However, does the question regarding species classification  have a strictly biological/scientific answer?
 I will undersand if you would rather not answer this question, but it is what I understood the original poster, regarding single cells, and phenotypes to be asking.
 Thank you for your time I appreciate it.
Janet.

Answer
Dear Janet,

Please don't worry about having caused anyone to send me odd questions about classification.  Although the person in question claimed he was not religious, it's pretty obvious he had a religious agenda, and he's pretty much given up on me, I think.

Your question:  "Does the question regarding species classification  have a strictly biological/scientific answer?"  I can address, though.

Classification and naming of species (alpha taxonomy) and placing them into a hierarchy of taxonomic groupings (beta taxonomy) has very specific rules that are dictated by organizations called the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, for animals), the ICBN (for plants and fungi), and ICBacterialN (for microorganisms).  

The complete rules of the ICZN can be found here:

http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp

and as you'll see, they are MASSIVE.

I would not call the answer scientific, for the same reasons I gave Doyle:  Science is a method by which one tries to pose and answer questions via rigorous experiments.  Taxonomy is often based on scientific research, but it is probably more accurate to consider it a tool and a system rather than science, per se.  The rules are logical and rational, but ultimately arbitrary.

I cannot find anything in the ICZN rules that states whether or not zygotes or embryos should be accorded a species name, and I'm not even sure anyone in the ICZN would be able to answer that question, for the same reasons I cited to Doyle.

It would be interesting to ask them, and I might just do that!

Sorry I don't have a better answer.

Hope this helps.

Dana