[Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7

Mon Nov 11 14:14:02 CST 2019

Several good arguments have already been made on this subject, some of
which I agree with, but the main issue in my mind is this: why do
conservation biologists feel like they need to tell taxonomists what to do?
A couple of years ago there was a snarky piece in Nature bemoaning the fact
that taxonomists tend to keep changing the names of taxa and that was
getting in the way of international agreements, etc.... as if names were
cast in stone once published. Maybe the problem wasn't the taxonomists but
the International agreements...

That resulted in several rejoinders, one of which I signed on to with 181
other taxonomists. But I guess that message wasn't delivered loud enough
and now we have this guy (Schiffman) who says he is a conservation
biologist writing for Scientific American again telling taxonomists that
because some names are objectionable because of the person they are named
after, taxonomists should go about changing the names.

I am a person who works a lot on conservation issues, and I describe marine
species, and I have my opinions about people naming new species after their
kids or spouses or whomever, but I, maybe because I actually work some of
the time as a taxonomist, know that there are rules set by
International Codes, and that as long as those rules are followed, no one
else of us has any say in who or what a taxonomist wants to name a species
after. (I was going to say honor, but in some cases a species is named
after someone because that person has not so honorable qualities.) The ICZN
has additional guidelines about being nice, but that is about all...

In the end, I think the major problem is that these people, who rely on
taxonomy to know what to call something, don't really consider taxonomy to
be a science. And they certainly have no understanding of the business,
including the fact that we have rule books. So the next time this comes up
maybe we should send them a copy....

Les Watling
Professor, Dept. of Biology
216 Edmondson Hall
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
Ph. 808-956-8621
Cell: 808-772-9563
e-mail: watling at hawaii.edu

On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 8:00 AM <taxacom-request at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> Daily News from the Taxacom Mailing List
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: Dishonorable people as species names (Kenneth Kinman)
>    2. Re: Dishonorable people as species names (JF Mate)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2019 03:32:35 +0000
> From: Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
> To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CY4PR11MB148009E39AEDD6964EA3BA79C1750 at CY4PR11MB1480.namprd11.prod.outlook.com
> >
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
>
> Dear All,
>        I guess this name is probably still a nomen nudum, but Aidan Bell
> (owner of EnviroBuild) in late 2018 won at auction (for $25,000) the naming
> rights for a worm-like amphibian (caecilian) which is “blind and buries its
> head in the sand”.  He chose the name "Dermophis donaldtrumpi" as an
> unflattering reference to the U.S. President.  But in the United States,
> Trump is regarded by millions as a wonderful person, while millions of
> others think he is awful.
>       So will this proposed species name be approved or rejected by peer
> review?
>
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/19/blind-worm-like-amphibian-that-buries-its-head-underground-has-bee
> <
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/19/blind-worm-like-amphibian-that-buries-its-head-underground-has-been-named-after-donald-trump/
> >n-named-after-donald-trump/<
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/19/blind-worm-like-amphibian-that-buries-its-head-underground-has-been-named-after-donald-trump/
> >
>
> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dermophis-donaldtrumpi-amphibian-trump/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Geoff
> Read via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, November 9, 2019 12:38 AM
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: [Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2019 09:11:16 +0100
> From: JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>
> To: Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CADQJvRy5fmWTAK+zRpLQdjFHoxpzd477ZUm8a3Fq-GEXAffaiQ at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> 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 author´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
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Taxacom Mailing List
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> > The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
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> > Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for 32 some years, 1987-2019.
>
>
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> End of Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7
> ***************************************
>