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

[Fred Schueler]

On 9/2/2013 4:25 AM, Paul van Rijckevorsel wrote:
> From: "Fred Schueler" <bckcdb at istar.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, September 01, 2013 10:53 PM
>
>>  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.
>
> Linnaeus put many conifers in the genus Pinus, resulting in the
> name Pinus abies. Given that there is universal agreement that
> this tree does not belong among the pines, but among the
> spruces (Picea), and that this agreement has existed for a very
> long time, the combination Picea abies is quite economical and
> quite informative. The idea of using "Pinus-abies [Picea]" does
> not appeal at all.

* the proposal is to use contemporary combinations for the uninominal 
names, not the generic assignments in original descriptions - this again 
would require agreement about what's the contemporary assignment of each 
species...

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/
------------------------------------------------------------