[Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7

Mon Nov 11 14:18:28 CST 2019

Yeah! What he said!

Neal L. Evenhuis, PhD.
Senior Curator of Entomology

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704
Office: (808) 848-4138
Fax: (808) 847-8252
BishopMuseum.org<www.bishopmuseum.org>

From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> on behalf of taxacom <TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU<mailto:TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU>>
Reply-To: Les Watling <watling at hawaii.edu<mailto:watling at hawaii.edu>>
Date: Monday, November 11, 2019 at 10:14 AM
To: taxacom <TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU<mailto:TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU>>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7

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<mailto:watling at hawaii.edu>

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

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Today's Topics:

    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<mailto:kinman at hotmail.com>>
To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names
Message-ID:
         <
CY4PR11MB148009E39AEDD6964EA3BA79C1750 at CY4PR11MB1480.namprd11.prod.outlook.com<mailto:CY4PR11MB148009E39AEDD6964EA3BA79C1750 at CY4PR11MB1480.namprd11.prod.outlook.com>
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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<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> on behalf of Geoff
Read via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
Sent: Saturday, November 9, 2019 12:38 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>>
To: Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dishonorable people as species names
Message-ID:
         <
CADQJvRy5fmWTAK+zRpLQdjFHoxpzd477ZUm8a3Fq-GEXAffaiQ at mail.gmail.com<mailto:CADQJvRy5fmWTAK+zRpLQdjFHoxpzd477ZUm8a3Fq-GEXAffaiQ at mail.gmail.com>>
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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<mailto: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<mailto:gread at actrix.gen.nz>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
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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
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