dkomo  wrote or quoted:

> Biological evolution takes place on the time scale of hundreds of 
> thousands or millions of years, so in our case I think it has little 
> relevance.  We will have either destroyed ourselves or transformed 
> ourselves into Homo Superior (a distinctly different species) through 
> our science and technology long before then.

What's the test for whether two creatures are of the same species?

The usual one is whether they can breed and produce viable offspring.

I reckon our descendants will be able to combine their own genomes
with those of practically any other living creature - using genetic
engineering - and are *highly* likely to be able to combine their
genomes with those of their ancestors in some way - assuming some of 
these are preserved somewhere.

Since there would also (presumably) be genetic continuity with
us, I think you would have to use some other means of species
classification if you were going to argue that our descendants
were of a different species from us.

Morphological similarity might be what you are after here -
our distant descendants seem unlikely to bear much physical
resembalance to us.

Physical similarity isn't usually that great as a means
of classifying species - as sexual dimorphism illustrates -
but if you are going to argue our descendants are of a
different species from us - despite being able to interbreed
with us (or practically anything else for that matter), then
that might be the best grounds on which to do it.
-- 
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