Individuals have no essential properties in the way kinds do—they have contingent histories, so ascribing historical essences to species conflates individual persistence conditions with kind membership criteria.

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Conflates(in argumentation and logic): Treats two different things as if they're the same thing, or mixes them up in a way that causes confusion.
Historical essences(metaphysics): The idea that something's essential nature is defined by its past—what it came from or how it developed. For instance, claiming a species is essentially defined by its evolutionary history.
Individual persistence conditions(metaphysics): The rules that determine what makes a specific thing stay the same thing over time. For a person, this might mean: 'as long as there's continuity of memory and body, it's still me.'
Kind membership criteria(metaphysics): The requirements something must meet to belong to a category. For example, the criteria for membership in the 'dogs' kind might be: descended from wolves and domesticated by humans.

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