Hybridization as Speciation? The Viewpoint of Greek Folk Biology (and Aristotle) on the Mutation of Species

Abstract

Modern evolutionary biologists, as for example Michael Arnold, attest that hybridizations could have a strong creative force in organismal Such an idea was considered as blasphemous by 19th century critics on evolutionism, and did not entirely convince Charles Darwin himself, but it would not have surprised the ancient Greeks and Romans, who knew that inter-specific couplings gave birth to new species. These new species, however, were considered as products of a process of adulteration or involution, rather than evolution.