Common names
Niklas Wahlberg
niklas.wahlberg at helsinki.fi
Wed Jun 2 01:28:37 EDT 1999
Once again this thread starts. Being a Finn I don't really care how many
names you english speakers make up for butterfly (and other organisms)
species. How would you react if I started talking about the suruvaippa I
saw yesterday? Or perhaps the kaaliperhonen, everybody knows that, it's a
common pest of cabbage gardens... (the two species mentioned are Nymphalis
antiopa and Pieris brassicae, respectively)
The point is that latin names give the _rest of the world_ a better
idea of what you are talking about. I hope that systematic classifications
start stabilizing little by little. At least the concept of phylogenetical
systematics is gaining ground.
Cheers,
Niklas
At 21:42 1.6.1999 -0400, Michael Gochfeld wrote:
>I would argue that it isn't intrinsically more difficult to memorize the
>scientific name of this butterfly than to learn its common name. Some
>scientific names are daunting, but some common names are complex as
>well.
>
>But it is a flaw to assume that the scientific names are "better". For
>example, looking at papers published a hundred years ago in northeastern
>U.S. I found that more of the common than scientific names had remained
>unchanged. Thus at any point in time a scientific name may be the same
>in North America and Europe, but over time the meddling in systematics
>is reflected in dramatic changes in our understanding of species
>concepts, generic relationships, etc. Particularly at the generic level
>where there don't seem to be many "rules", it can be a free-for all.
>Have our European colleagues kept up to date on our realignment of
>American hairstreaks at the generic level????
>
>So it may be easier to learn two common names than to keep track of the
>evolving scientific names. ----if "easier" is a virtue.
>
>M. Gochfeld
>
>
_________________________________________________________________________
Niklas Wahlberg
Department of Ecology and Systematics
Division of Population Biology
PO Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7)
00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
p. +358-9-191 7378, fax +358-9-191 7301
Check out our www-site:
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/metapop/
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