I haven’t looked much at the extended phenotype literature, although that is changing as we speak. Thanks for pointing me in that direction!
The thing I wanted to communicate was less “existing groups of things we call species are perfect examples of how super-organisms should work” and more “the definition of an ideal species captures something quite salient about what it means for a super-organism to be distinct from other super-organisms and its environment.” In practice, yes, looking at structure does seem to be better.
I haven’t looked much at the extended phenotype literature, although that is changing as we speak. Thanks for pointing me in that direction!
The thing I wanted to communicate was less “existing groups of things we call species are perfect examples of how super-organisms should work” and more “the definition of an ideal species captures something quite salient about what it means for a super-organism to be distinct from other super-organisms and its environment.” In practice, yes, looking at structure does seem to be better.