Evolvers are Individuals: Extension of the Species as Individuals Claim

In what are almost asides Ghiselin (1974, 1981), Hull (1976), Holsinger (1984), and Williams (1985) have all claimed not only that species are individuals but that populations are individuals. This larger claim has been lost in the glare of dispute over whether species are individuals. Part of the reason for this neglect is that the term ‘population’, although central to population biology, is considerably more amorphous than the term ‘species’ and it is thus considerably more difficult to dispute any claims about it. But if the individuality of species is important because of what it tells us about the way they function in biological laws (as Hull (1976, 1981, 1987) assserts), then the individuality of populations should also be understood so that we can understand how they function in biological laws.