Farewell to species (but not yet!)

[B. J. Tindall]

Don McAllister wrote:

>And indeed it would be worth some effort to think out
>and possibly implement such a parallel 'permanent' uninomial.  I put
>'permanent' in quotes because there will have to be some exceptions to
>permanency in any system.

I suppose Linneaus thought his system would also survive without synonyms
or homonyms? Once one allows "exceptions" you open the door to more
"exceptions".

>I am not sure how invariate chemical nomenclature is, but everyone seems to
>know what I mean by sodium chloride or NaCl around the world.  And that is a
>valuabel attribute, that overides the variety of cultural and linguistic
common
>names that are used.
>
You might get by with NaCl (or even CAS numbers), but I spend quite some
time scanning chemical catalogues trying to get from some obscure English
name to an even more obscure German name. However the number of elements in
chemistry are far smaller than the number of species.

There were experiments with a numerical coding system at the University of
Delft when dealing with bacteria. However, the system relied upon some kind
of taxonomic heirachy which meant that everytime an organism changed its
taxonomic position you had to change part of the number. Unless a single
"label" is totally arbitrary and not linked to a structured system you get
into problems if you have to alter things to take into account changes in
the underlying structure.

Even if one sits down a comes up with one international standard it is not
always rational for everyone.

I suppose the real problem is that in the eyes of none taxonomists "we
often can't make up our minds where a particular species belongs". Even
binomials would be stable if we did not keep re-evaluating
taxonomy/phylogeny and coming to different conclusions, although I do not
see an alternative at present. Is giving up binomials also an excuse for
creating even more alternative taxonomies/phylogenies?
...and as for tracking all those synonyms in bacteriology, well that is
possible with a fair degree of ease and certainty via the Internet.
Brian Tindall


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