Why do scientist group living things?
The human brain is made to categorize things. It simplifies the world and makes the brain able to comprehend more of nature. It also makes it easier to communicate about nature. Think about communication first. Scientist A telling scientist B than an animal is a mammal tells scientist B tons of things about that animal without scientist A having the enumerate each one individually: the animal is ‘warm blooded’, females produce milk, it has hair, it is bilaterally symmetrical and has two eyes – which are camera-type – two ears, two fore limbs, two hind limbs – with all four limbs consisting of 1 upper limb bone, 2 lower limb bones, a cluster of ‘wrist’ bones, and 5 digit bones – the eggs are amniotic, it has a jae and a backbone, and a notochord and postanal tail – at least during embryonic development – … and so on … and the animal is multicellular, and those cells are eukaryotic, having a nucleus, mitochondria, etc. Now think about how handy it is to classify animals with all thos