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

[David Patterson]

I do not think that throwing away the past should be seen as a problem.  By
the time a change is made (and indeed we need to implement it now to
accommodate the results of discovery using molecular devices), we will have
many reconciliation / resolution tools like the GN ones, iPlant, BioNames,
and the GBIF validator (
http://gbif.blogspot.de/2013/07/validating-scientific-names-with.htm).
 They will provide the interconnections between the future (UUIDs following
the ZooBank style?) and the past 250 and beyond.

David Patterson


On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 6:28 AM, Stephen Thorpe
<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>wrote:

> The problem won't go away by creation of a new system of nomenclature
> (which I advise against), not unless we want to throw out 250 yrs worth of
> accumulated biological knowledge about named taxa! A system change would
> only make things easier from its inception, but we would still have to make
> sense of everything which came before ...
>
>
> From: Curtis Clark <lists at curtisclark.org>
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, 3 September 2013 8:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Binomial Nomenclature - was: "cataloguing
> hypotheses & not real things"
>
>
> On 2013-09-02 11:38 AM, Dan Lahr wrote:
> > I do realize that this analogy stretches the current situation in
> taxonomy,
> > because along with Mendeleev's introduction of the periodic table was
> > associated with a major paradigm shift (to which he immensely
> contributed)
> > of using atomic weights to classify elements.
> >
> > Well, we have had the paradigm shift some decades ago (Hennig), but have
> > not had the associated change in nomenclature.  The dual nature of genera
> > will eventually have to come to an end, as it is a relict from a time
> when
> > species names reflected the classification thoroughly.  This is not the
> > case anymore.
>
> The paradigm shift was Darwin, and the idea that higher-level
> classification reflects something in nature rather than an artificial
> "system of convenience". Hennig simply affirmed that the "something" was
> monophyletic groups.
>
> Fred Schueler reminds us that “It’s ironic that the anarchy of ‘descent
> with modification by natural selection’ should give rise to the only
> really important or useful natural hierarchical arrangement we know of.”
> Linnaeus was attempting to distinguish the individual species created by
> God, and yet his system has worked for 250 years.
>
> It's important only to a historian of science which of the four elements
> were involved in the metal mercury. But biologists even centuries ago
> recognized units of the natural world that we still find useful. It's
> true that I can't pick up a work from 1870 and be secure in recognizing
> the names of species, but there are nomenclators to help me with that. I
> can definitely be confident in recognizing names in a work from 1970.
>
> If we make a major change in nomenclature, we will need nomenclators for
> everything (most people on this list agree that is a noble goal, even if
> a few think it is impractical), and we'll need a list of names in
> current use (the bacteriologists have been there for a while, and the
> other codes are coming around). These are *prerequisites* for a
> fundamental change in nomenclature, lest it throw us into the dark ages
> of redescribing everything. The bacteriologists were successful in
> making such a change (although many would argue it doesn't go far
> enough), but there's a lot of work left to be done for everyone else.
>
> --
> Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
> Biological Sciences                  +1 909 869 4140
> Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768
>
>
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-- 

David J Patterson

Research Professor, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
Professor (MBL) Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
Emeritus Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney,
Australia