Arbitrary Biological Classification Conventions Are Ideology-Driven

To classify organisms, scientists use a system that derives from the work of the 18th century biologist Carolus Linnaeus. One feature of such a system is the habit of binomial nomenclature, the naming of species by using two Latin words (for example, Homo sapiens).  Another feature of such a system is a hierarchical group of categories, which include divisions such as kingdom, phylum, class, order, family and species.  Current classifications based on such a system are quite arbitrary.  One problem is that there is no reason to think that nature follows such rules of classification, allowing organisms to be nice and neatly placed into such categories. 

Binomial nomenclature and other biological categorization customs are now the handmaidens of ideology. Certain people wish for us to believe that humans are very similar to other species that lived long before humans. So such species have been given names that place such species in the same genus as humans. For example, a species that lived around 500,000 years ago is called Homo erectus, so that such a species sounds similar to our species called Homo sapiens.  Such classifications are constantly used as talking points for those trying to persuade us that humans evolved naturally from some more primitive species.  It is often suggested that some other species with a name beginning with Homo must be our evolutionary ancestors or evolutionary cousins, on the grounds that they are in the same genus as our species. 

But the name given to some species is an arbitary classification, and we should never put much weight on such names and such classifications.  To get a taste of the arbitrary caprice of biological classifications, let us look at the work from which all such classifications are derived. 

The modern system of biological classification derives from a work entitled "A general system of nature, through the three grand kingdoms of animals, vegetables, and minerals, systematically divided into their several classes, orders, genera, species, and varieties, with their habitations, manners, economy, structure, and peculiarities" by the 18th-century biologist Carolus Linnaeus.  To see how absurdly arbitrary such a work was, and also the errant ideology behind it, we may turn to the page in which the work discussed how humans fitted into its system of classification. 

The page below shows the page in which Linnaeus put humans into his system of classification. On that page Linnaeus classified several categories of humans, including the following:

• "Wild men," which he called "mute," suggesting the incorrect idea that "wild" humans did not use speech. 
• "American," which he racistly called "obstinate," and "content free," as if American Indians did not have ideas and minds like other humans. 
• "Europeans," which he described as "gentle," "acute," and "inventive," the description of "gentle" being wildly inaccurate given the long history of wars and persecutions in Europe. 
• "Asiatic," which he racistly described as "haughty" and "covetous."
• "African," which he racistly classified as "indolent" and "negligent," and "governed by caprice."

Besides making these racist characterizations of categories of humans in the Homo species classification, Linnaeus chose to  classify various other humans in some other species different from Homo sapiens, including Patagonians in South America, who he racistly classified as "indolent," and "mountaineers" who he racistly classified as "timid."

What we have here is proof that the biological classification scheme from which all modern biological classification derives was founded by someone who arbitrarily classified organisms according to some scheme that served his own ideology. We should very much suspect that the biological names and classifications of modern biologists are just as arbitrary and ideology-driven. Just as Linneaeus wrote the page above to help spread his racist ideology, modern biologists classify things in a way designed to help spread  Darwinist ideology.  This involves three main errors:

(1) Trying to make the origin of humans appear as not-so-special a development, biologists senselessly classify humans in an animal kingdom, even though because the human use of language is a completely unique behavior unknown to any other species, humans should really be classified in their own unique biological kingdom (if included in any system of biological classification).  A sensible classification of biological kingdoms would be to specify four such kingdoms: a microbe kingdom, a plant kingdom, an animal kingdom and a human kingdom.  Given a wealth of behaviors and mental capabilities that are unique to humans, there is every justification for classifying humans in their own unique kingdom (or for simply avoiding all attempts to classify the human species, and restricting such classification to non-human organisms). 

(2) Biologists classify some extinct species as being in the same genus as humans (the genus Homo), even though such a classification makes no sense, given that there is no robust evidence that any such extinct species ever had the two defining characteristics of humans: the use of language and the use of symbols.  It would make far more sense to classify such extinct species in some other genus, and to classify humans in their own unique kingdom or their own unique genus.  

(3) Using a word he invented and following the classification of Linnaeus in the page shown above, a page filled with racist falsehoods,  biologists use the word "primates" to designate an order consisting of apes, monkeys, and humans. Such a speech custom is erroneous and misleading, given that humans have so many unique mental and behavioral characteristics that drastically differentiate them from all apes and monkeys.  Humans should not be classifed in the same kingdom, genus or order used for any other species. 

All attempts to classify humans as some category of animals clashes with the reality of unique human behavior, and such attempts also are morally corrosive. When we teach that humans are just animals,  we make humans more likely to kill other humans while thinking something like, "I shouldn't sweat it; I merely killed an animal, so it was not much different from hunting a deer."  

What we should remember is that every time we read about a biological classification or a species name, we are hearing arbitrary classifications as ideology-driven as the racist nonsense of Linnaeus, whose work all biological classification systems derive from.   The fact that some species was arbitrarily placed in some genus classification or order classification or kingdom classification is of no value as evidence in trying to figure out whether we do or do not understand human origins.

Consider the odd word "primates" invented by Linnaeus. Such a word is very strangely used as a category for creatures as diverse as humans and small monkeys. But a human bears almost no mental resemblance to a small monkey, and also bears almost no physical resemblance to such a thing. The small monkey is covered in fur, and has a long tail; the monkey lives in trees, and the monkey's thorax may be only a few inches across. A human, on the other hand,  has no fur, no tail, and a weight maybe thirty times greater; and does not live in trees.  And humans act nothing like monkeys. So what sense does it make to have one word ("primates") referring to both of these creatures?

Conversely, there is no one word referring to both dolphins and humans, but their similarities are arguably greater. Both love to swim; both are about the same length; both are clever; both have smooth exteriors with no fur and little or no hair; both eat fish; and both smile or make expressions looking like smiles. So why do we have no word meaning "dolphins and men", but do have a single word ("primates") meaning "apes, monkeys and men"? Merely because of accidents of language or arbitrary classification events that have no evidential force. The biosphere does nothing to naturally suggest the concept of primates; it merely suggests concepts such as "monkeys," "apes," and "humans."  The fossil record also does nothing to naturally suggest the idea of primates (an order including men and monkeys), and the wikipedia.org article on primates shows that to advance claims of primates appearing where they appeared, scientists have found it necessary to resort to very unbelievable tall tales such as monkeys rafting from Africa to Madagascar, and monkeys rafting across the Atlantic ocean. 

Given that they have so many unique mental characteristics and unique behavior characteristiscs, there has never been any justification (scientific or otherwise) for claiming that humans are animals.  The claim that humans are animals is one of the most absurd speech customs of modern biologists.  As for the claim that humans descended from animals, such a claim is unproven; and even if such a claim were true, it would not do anything to prove that humans are animals.  Even if one thing is descended from another thing, it does not prove that the first thing is an example of the second thing. For example, a man can trace his origin back to a fertilized egg, but that does not show that a man is a fertilized egg; and a large plant had its beginning as a seed, but that does not show that a plant is a seed. 

We should remember that expert classification conventions are speech customs that do not necessarily match reality.  Until 1973 psychiatrists classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. But after a 1973 meeting, they changed their minds, and stopped classifying homosexuality as a mental disorder. The speech custom they had before 1973 (of calling homosexuality a mental disorder) did nothing to show that homosexuality is a mental disorder.  Wiser humans in the future will look back on the current  biologist's classification custom of classifying humans as animals, and regard that with the same scorn as people now have towards pre-1973 classifications of homosexuality as a mental disorder. 

Postscript: In his long and very interesting book Man and His Relations by S. B. Brittan, which often deals with paranormal phenomena, we read the following astute statement:

"But  if  instead of  confining  our  observations  to  the  physical  department of  his  complex  nature,  we  have  regard  to  moral  aspects and  psychological  attributes,  we  shall  readily  discover  that Man  is  forever  separated  from  the  whole  animal  world  by natural  lines  that  are  broader  and  deeper  than  any  that define  the  limits  of  the  other  kingdom. A great  gulf divides  the  illimitable  faculties  and  rational  reverence  of Man  from  the  highest  development  of  the  brute  instincts. Materialism,  aided  by  the  most  ingenious  sophistry,  has never  been  able  to  bridge  the  chasm.  The  grand  faculties and  achievements  which  so  distinguish  Man  from  all  inferior natures,  plainly  indicate  that  the  Race  constitutes  a separate kingdom.  In  a treatise  on  the  Unity  of  the  Human  Species M.  Quatrefages  says  that  'Man  must  form  a kingdom  by himself,  if  once  we  permit  his  moral  and  intellectual  endowments to  have  their  due  weight  in  classification.' ”