Hamstrung by Plato's concept of essence, biologists were long in coming to an appreciation of variation in living things. Plato considered the essences of things in the metaphysical world were the realty and that things in the everyday world were merely imperfect reflections. Thus variation was due solely to the distortions of the physical realm. Christianity adopted the concept, except that essence became the perfect concept in the mind of the Creator, and real creatures failed to meet that concept because of the corrupting nature of the world.
Early biologists proceeded to name new species whenever they thought an
organism was too different to fit a previously known type. For example, early
biologists proceeded to describe 87 differently named kinds of North American
grizzly-like bears, mostly as new species. Three of these were species supposed to
occur in our Chihuahuan Desert Region. With better biological understanding, not only
is it now considered that all the mostly hunted-out groups likely belonged to a single
species, but that that species is Ursus arctos, the Brown Bear of Eurasia.
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.