I think you're too concerned with words reflecting reality rather than facilitating communication. I made a thread here in the current events forum asking what a species is and so far, noone has been able to answer it including myself. Still, we have some kind of idea what it is and that's actually really helpful. If I say
Rattus norvegicus to another biologist, he knows what I'm talking about well enough for us to be able to exchange a great amount of meaningful information about that particular species. Take away species as a word and doing basic conservation, agriculture and resource management would become a huge problem.
Language serves humanity, not reality. Words are still useful even if their definitions are not 100% set in stone.
edit :
I may have been "strawmanning" a bit here (the new term for arguing against made up arguments, I've recently learned) and if so, sorry and feel free to ignore.
