[Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names

Mon Nov 11 02:13:46 CST 2019

If we ignore the publicity-seeking media part -- which may or may not be
attached to any publication of a new species named after e.g. a celebrity,
and may be mandated by e.g. university rules about publishing small
summaries on every publication and thus not be the researchers' fault --
what is actually the problem?

I'm working on a genus where we may have over 1000 undescribed species in
Africa alone, and my student is working on a genus where the undescribed
diversity may be even higher. We're going to run out of "dignified" names
pretty soon, as the morphological differences are often in characters that
don't really make for good names. So we turn to naming species after people.

In the last few years, I have named species in the same genus-complex after
colleagues who work with the same group, with scientists who don't work
with this group at all, friends who are biologists (but who have only very
marginally helped me with my research), friends who are not biologists,
people who have helped me collect specimens (bird banders), he kid sister
of one of my co-authors (who is also not a biologist yet, being younger
than 10), minor celebrities who are not biologists but who have been
advocates for conservation, major celebrities who I admire, and one
fictional character. None of these have garnered any publicity at all
(except that one of my friends embroidered her species onto the ceremonial
mitres the fake priests wore on my wedding). What, exactly, is the
difference between the people in one end of the list and people in the
other?

Is it "dignified" to name a species after my mother?
What about naming one after Darwin/Dawkins/Mayr/Linnaeus? Do they count as
celebrities (= undignified) or as scientists (= dignified)?

Do we really (in the case of my focus taxon) need a 100th species of
chewing louse named after Theresa Clay just because she was the greatest
louse taxonomist ever? I would have thought that diversifying who you name
species after would make homonyms less likely, and thus make the taxonomy
more stable.

Setting aside the issues that are not actually part of taxonomy, i don't
really see what the problem is here.

Cheers,
Daniel

On Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 3:04 PM Geoff Read via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> Thanks for the responses.
>
> Would anyone disagree with the title of the piece - "Scientists Should
> Stop Naming Species after Awful People"?  Yes, we shouldn't do that.
> However, as in Ken's example, we are not likely to agree on who is awful.
>
> Nevertheless I find distasteful the sycophantic, publicity-seeking, naming
> of species after celebrities, singers, politicians, fictional characters
> in books & movies, and the very wealthy, all of whom have no connection or
> interest in the species being named.  It makes me cringe when I see one of
> those names published, and see the subsequent sniggering in the press, to
> the detriment of any science.  Taxonomists, lets have some dignity about
> our naming choices.
>
> And yes, retrospective renaming based on current moral perspectives isn't
> going to happen.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Geoff
>
>
> On Sun, November 10, 2019 9:11 pm, JF Mate via Taxacom wrote:
> > The article is a naive, retrospective view of history and science
> > which is best ignored. Also it is hard to see how this is "a problem
> > in the field" or how advance in the science will be achieved by a "...
> > decision to no longer publicly honor human rights violators..." when
> > the author can only come up with a handful of really old examples out
> > of millions of names. They are historical accidents and scrubbing
> > history is at best difficult, and at worst a dangerous path with an
> > ignoble past.
> >
> > There is no doubt that naming species after individuals carries the
> > risk that said people willl be found out to be less than deserving in
> > the future. We can all agree on Hitler, but only now in retrospective,
> > whereas in 1933 it was probably no different to naming the species
> > after a queen or king. Also, as Kenneth says, there is a very wide
> > grey area regarding the definition of "awful people", in particular if
> > we cast our gaze into the past. Are we now expected to constantly
> > re-write history against the ever changing check-list of the
> > undeserving whilst our moral and social conventions change through
> > time?
> >
> > The author makes the dubious observation that the position of not
> > applying the moral ideas of the present "ignores that there were large
> > numbers of people who opposed those awful actions at the time..." but
> > this also ignores that morality and social conventions evolve
> > gradually and that at the time many different positions jostled for
> > pre-eminence. If one wants to look to the past and retain the gems you
> > have to be willing to confront the muck you will have to dig through.
> > I can read and appreciate Kipling, Lovecraft or Woolf and at the same
> > time reject their social perspectives which were very much rooted in
> > the past. This means nuance, circumspection and empathy for our less
> > enlightened past.
> >
> > A particularly worrying paragraph distils the real idea of the
> > article: "Taxonomists have a role to play in who society decides to
> > publicly honor, which is a small but real contributor to problems with
> > diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM." Are we expected to name
> > species based on what they did, but also how morally deserving they
> > might be now and in the future as well as on checklists? Since this is
> > an opinion, and I have no position to endanger I will say it outright,
> > this is a daft article written without paying attention to logic,
> > stability or what science is about. If we want to avoid similar cases
> > in the future we can stop using patronyms and the problem is solved,
> > but this is not the authorÂ´s intent of course.
> >
> > J
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 at 07:38, Geoff Read via Taxacom
> > <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> It's a  tricky one.
> >>
> >>
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-should-stop-naming-species-after-awful-people/
> >>
> >> also the originator:
> >> https://twitter.com/WhySharksMatter/status/1192790203037040647
> >>
> >> --
> >> Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
> >> Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
> >> gread at actrix.gen.nz
> >>
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> >>
> >> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years,
> >> 1987-2019.
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.
> >
>
>
> --
> Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
> Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
> gread at actrix.gen.nz
>
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> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.
>