[Crito]

>So, they are arguably the same species, though arguably not.

Nature has no respect for our discrete classifications.

[MR4D]

Your statement nailed it. I think that 100 years from now we won't be teaching biology and it's existing classification system of Kingdom/Phylum/Class, but something much more accurate based on genetics (i.e. DNA).

It might still fit the hierarchy, but the delineation will be much better aligned with nature.

[marcosdumay]

We are already reviewing species, gender, family and sometimes even class classification based on DNA. It didn't change things that much.

[averagewall]

Humans need classifications to easily understand and describe complex things. If you defined species in a continuous way, we'd have a hard time getting our heads around how similar these prehistoric "animals" were to ourselves. We'd have to describe their differences which would be quite complicated. Instead, we can coarsely group them into species as a quick mental shortcut for high level understanding.

[olavk]

I think classifications are necessary even though nature is fuzzy and gradual.

[sedachv]

That is already how biology is being taught: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m4Gvu90Ydw [Lec 1 | MIT 7.012 Introduction to Biology, Fall 2004]

[GlennS]

This has already happened, and is called cladistics.

So, pretty good prediction.

[wyager]

Our discrete classifications actually match DNA-based clustering results pretty accurately. If you do multi-dimensional clustering on allele frequency at multiple loci, the clusters pretty much exactly match the species/subspecies classifications that humans use intuitively. Our discrete classifications don't cover all cases, but they're surprisingly good in the vast majority of cases.

[placeybordeaux]

But humans obviously do.