Sycophants and other pachyderms

[Finn N. Rasmussen, BL]

Dr. Trehane wrote:

> This may all sound a bit sycophantic and I should make it clear
> that..

It does indeed. Lets keep sycophantism out of the IAPT polemic. The
relevant question is: has the present secretarariat tried to obstruct the
election or not?

It would seem that a revolt in IAPT is an internal affair that should
not bother TAXACOM'ers who are not members. On the other hand, we
are all users of botanical nomenclature (even the zoologists are). I
wonder how many botanical taxonomists are actually members of IAPT?
I guess it is a minority, perhaps a rather small minority. Isn't it
disturbing that a subject with so far reaching consequences as
nomenclature is controlled by a (perhaps rather small) society,
where the officers usually are picked by their predecessors without
much debate? Or is this really the way it should be: nomenclature is
perhaps so complicated that decisions about rules etc. is better left
to a clique of autogamous experts?

Biological systematics has changed much since the time of Linnaeus,
and it migh tbe worth reconsidering some of the foundations of
"Linnean" practices, such as binomial names and the relations between
phylogeny and hierachy. I wonder if such issues are being discussed
when new members of the inner nomclatural circles are selected.

Finn Rasmussen (not member of IAPT).





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 Finn N. Rasmussen * Bot. Lab. University of Copenhagen, Denmark
 Homepage: http://www.bot.ku.dk  E-mail: FinnR at bot.ku.dk
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