[Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7

Mon Nov 11 14:58:40 CST 2019

Thanks Terry and Neal... will be interesting to see what the crazy
taxacomers come up with... but I suspect most of the community would
agree... at least I hope so...

Best,
les

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 Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 10:55 AM Terry Hedderson <terry.hedderson at uct.ac.za>
wrote:

> Ja - I tend to be a lurker wrt most of these things, but I think that Les
> Watling is absolutely spot on.  We really shouldn't be  so introspective.
> A name is a name... if it is code compliant then ?????
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Terry
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Neal
> Evenhuis via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, 11 November 2019 22:18:28
> *To:* Les Watling <watling at hawaii.edu>; Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 163, Issue 7
>
> 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:
>
> Daily News from the Taxacom Mailing List
>
> When responding to a message, please do not copy the entire digest into
> your reply.
> ____________________________________
>
>
> 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
> >
> >
>
> 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<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>>
> 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<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>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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