Botanical Code Article 71

[David Wright]

Linnaean categories, or *ranks* are the root of evil in Linnaean
nomenclature.  Get rid of "classes," "orders," "genera," etc. and you are
left with named clades.  (For example,  "Order Artiodactyla" becomes
simply "Artiodactyla").  Get rid of binomials, too, but simply use
uninomials for "species" taxa (no numerics, please...).  (And note that
jettisoning these arbitrary categories would do away with much of the
rationale for defending paraphyletic groups.)


David Wright
dwright at u.washington.edu

Curtis Clark wrote:
>What would you suggest in its place?  Remember that your substitute (or
>substitutes) must provide 1) uniform designators without respect to
>differing languages, 2) a system that in principle can assign a name to
>any organism, or else provide a mechanism to give it a consistent new
>name,
>and 3) a mechanism of grouping organisms in a manner that has at least
>some
>biological meaning.