[Taxacom] Binomial Nomenclature - was: "cataloguing hypotheses & not real things"

[Fred Schueler]

On 9/1/2013 4:32 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> Binomial nomenclature could be interpreted in a uninomial way, i.e., the
> genus is just part of the name and carries no "baggage" (i.e. hypothesis
> or extra information)

* that's what we proposed in 1972 - my point was that it would look like 
it carried information. The point of the transition from polynomial to 
binomial names was mnemonic - and a transition to uninominal practice 
would still preserve the appearance of binominalism - nobody would be 
able to tell that Rana-pipiens and Rana-aurora were now in different 
genera - though on the other hand one could have a convention of putting 
a changed generic name in brackets after the uninominal name so that 
they'd be written as Rana-pipiens [Lithobates] and Rana-aurora - so 
maybe my objection isn't as cogent as I thought it was.

fred.
=========================================================


> *From:* Fred Schueler <bckcdb at istar.ca>
> *To:* taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> *Sent:* Monday, 2 September 2013 1:26 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] Binomial Nomenclature - was: "cataloguing
> hypotheses & not real things"
>
> On 9/1/2013 8:18 AM, Fred Schueler wrote:
>  > On 9/1/2013 5:58 AM, Dan Lahr wrote:
>  >
>  >> One of the things that I often wonder is why nobody ever suggested a
> more
>  >> logical, parsimonious and I suspect bioinformatics friendlier (not
> my area,
>  >> can someone confirm?) transition to uninomial nomenclature.
>  >
>  > nobody? - Rising, James D., and Frederick W.  Schueler.  1972.  How
>  > stable is binominal nomenclature?  Systematic Zoology 21:438-439 - it's
>  > been suggested many times, it's just that adoption would require large
>  > numbers of taxonomists to agree on something, which runs counter to the
>  > spirit of the Codes.
>
> * and just as a final comment for today, the big problem with uninominal
> nomenclature is that the only plausible starting point for it is a
> hypenation or something of the existing binominal names (Rising &
> Schueler, 1972), which would fix forever the existing generic
> arrangements in the minds of the taxonomically naive users, who are
> supposed to be the main beneficiary of uninominal names...
>
> fred.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>            Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
> Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
> Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
> Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
>            RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
>    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
>      (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
          RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
    (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
------------------------------------------------------------