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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tannin" data-source="post: 1468787" data-attributes="member: 2018">Richard, Pariah gave you a pretty good answer right away, but let's see if I can't boil it down to something short and simple.H sapiens is generally considered to be monotypic because it is monotypic. Determination of "species" and "subspecies" has nothing to do with the size or number of observable differences between populations. Repeat, nothing. Species and subspecies classifications are only assigned where there is a lack of gene flow between the two populations. In humans, there is substantial gene flow between all the various populations, so it wouldn't matter if South Africans had green teeth and feathers while Icelanders were 2 feet tall with flippers instead of ears .... if there is significant gene flow between the populations, then the question of species or subspecies doesn't even arise.Have large numbers of formally-named subspecies ever been proposed for H sapiens historically?  Yes. But the evidence didn't support them.Does the current treatment reflect concerns that subspecies recognition might have divisive or racist implications?  No. The question does not arise because there is no lack of gene flow. Or is it simply an acknowledgement that human subspecific taxonomy would be too complex/controversial to be scientifically useful? No. Such a classification would make a nonsense of our current system of scientific classification. You'd have to revise every other classification of every other living thing. (Well, certainly the higher taxa, such as birds and mammals. At a wild guess, you'd wind up with 50,000 bird "species" with hundreds of thousands of "subspecies", and an unworkable mess instead of the current system of classification which, for all its problems, actually works quite well most of the time.)</blockquote>

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