Butterfly Names - survey results, a question and discussion

Felix Sperling Felix.Sperling at ualberta.ca
Thu Mar 30 07:48:01 EST 2000


Thank you to all the people who took the trouble to reply to my
question of two days ago! It wasn't always clear which category to
enumerate people in (including Wanda Dameron's note that she has
now posted on Leps-l), but I have made my best guess based on the
accompanying comments.

If you can bear with me through another long posting, I'd also like to
ask you another question. This one concerns what you think would be the
best starting point for a committee that is intended to "reduce the
confusing welter of names", as the announcement of the NABA committee
put it. As before, in this posting I speak only for myself.

To spare those who feel they know enough about the issues and don't
have the time to go through my posting, I've put my question here.
(please send responses to me at  felix.sperling at ualberta.ca )
...............................................

At this point in time, which do you think is the better starting point
to build on by a committee dedicated to reducing the confusing welter
of names for North American butterflies?

a. NABA First Edition (1995)
b. combined list of Opler and Lafontaine, as in their 1998 and 1999 books
..........................................................

Now for the summary of responses to my question as to whether I
should stay with or abandon the existing independent committee:
A total of 33 people responded, of which 28 said "hang in there".
These 28 included 10 who are Lep Soc members only, 12 who are
members of both NABA and Lep Soc, and 6 who were neither (but who
generally noted that they were part of a society like ATL or Lorquin's).
For the 5 people who said "cut your losses", 3 are only Lep Soccers
and 2 are in both NABA and Lep Soc. Most of these 5 added comments
like "it's hopeless" and the rest did not comment. As far as I could
determine, no one was only a NABA member.

Admittedly, any survey based on self selection will have some biases.
Also my question had several angles to it and could be taken
as applying only to me or to the whole committee that I am part of.
But it looks to me like there is a healthy ratio of people who
would rather have my work and/or the committee continue than not.
(Of course the fact that hundreds of Leps-l members didn't say anything
can be interpreted any way you want).

So - where to go from here? I agree with those who commented that
it sure would be nice if people could just get along and sort things
out. However at this point, after having watched the recalcitrance
of the primary players get more entrenched over the last few months,
I don't think that compromise is realistic. In fact, our plan to
meet this spring has now been abandoned since most of our members believe
that there was no point in convening a special meeting once the main
person who requested that we urgently consider his list of objections
has set up an alternate committee. On the other hand, and
especially after reading the comments that came with the survey
responses, I am reluctant to let go of the concept of a single names
committee either. Although I strongly support the free-for-all of primary
publications, I just as strongly believe that we need a mechanism
at another level that provides guidance and stability for the rapidly
expanding numbers of people who simply want to use butterfly scientific
or common names.

As a result, I'd like to try an experiment in participatory taxonomy.
I initially thought that it might prove interesting to present the
pros and cons for a "species of the month" discussion. My fellow
committee members were not opposed to the concept when I mentioned
it, but they did not feel that they would have the time to participate
in such a public discussion. However, I think that I should first focus
on an even more basic issue, which is the question of what the
best starting point is for any committee that wishes to "reduce the
confusing welter of names".

In my previous email posting of two days ago, I gave some of the reasons
why I chose to go along with the composite list that had already been worked
out by Opler and Lafontaine. That list was by that point essentially a
done deal, and producing a third list was not going to reduce the
confusion. It was also reasonable for me to expect that revisiting the
taxonomic names on the list was not going to give a very different list,
considering that two of our five members were the ones who had produced
the list (and were asked by Jeffrey Glassberg to be members of the
committee). Finally, even though I thought that there were some names in
the list that would not bear the test of time, the total list was definitely
an increment better than the NABA First Edition list. Remember that the
only real deliberations of the original NABA names committee concerned
which common/English name to use, and not the actual species
limits. This committee deferred decisions on species limits to the
scientific names in the previously published books by Opler and Scott,
and an unpublished list of another committee member, Bob Robbins.

Thus the "starting point" list that our committee eventually agreed on
was in every way, except by our formal affiliation, a successor to the
the NABA First Edition list. It was produced by the same people and by
the same process. It also gave exactly what Glassberg had asked us
to give him, which was a list that he could use for the next round of
NABA discussions about common names without needing to get into the
species limits discussions that are essential to scientific names. 
Most importantly, it gave Glassberg a list
that he could work with and not have his publication schedule held
up. Our list was made available to Glassberg in mid 1998, in plenty of
time for him to use in his book preparations and a revised NABA common
names list. It was also made available for dissemination on
websites like the USGS website for which Opler is the main advisor, and
the "Butterfly Net International" website maintained at Oregon State
by Andy Brower (http://www.ent.orst.edu/bnet/north.htm). The Oregon
State website records the list as having been received for posting on
July 6th 1998.

The next phase of our committee was the more time-consuming step of
deliberately revisiting particular names on request, and examining newly
published names. We envisioned the next phase as one that would allow our
committee to stay on top of the names as they came along. It would also
allow us to provide, at relatively short notice, a more carefully worked
list than if we had to deal with 5-10 years worth of taxonomic publications
such as had accumulated since the scientific names were reviewed to produce
the basis for the NABA First Edition list. Throughout this phase, I
believe that none of us knew until just a few weeks before our meeting in
October 1999, one year after our list was made available to him, that
Glassberg considered our working list as unacceptable.

At this point, I can think of four general kinds of reasons why
anyone should wish to produce another North American butterfly names
species list at this point.

The first reason is that the person believes it will promote nomenclatural
stability, with consequent positive ripple effects for butterfly
watching by neophytes and even conservation awareness. I think this is a
very worthy reason, and it is the basis for my own involvement in one
of the committees. The main problem is that I simply can't see how having
a second committee and an independent list for NABA, simply for the sake
of having it under the control of NABA, can help in this regard. In fact,
I think it is fair to ask whether it is NABA as a whole or the NABA
president that wishes such as list. Has the NABA membership or even
its executive ever had a vote on what the current mandate is for their
"Common Names Committee"? In the latest correspondence and publications
that I have for NABA, Paul Opler and Bob Robbins are listed as vice
presidents and directors. We know from his Leps-l posting yesterday
that another director, Fred Heath, "personally would have allowed Paul's
group to continue unchallenged". If the NABA president, Jeffrey Glassberg,
is free to keep reconstituting committees until they give him the desired
result, without going back to the executive for approval, how can this
kind of one-man rule lead to greater nomenclatural stability?
Please note that I am a NABA member myself, and I am not challenging the
right of the founding president to run NABA as he wishes. But I am
anticipating the claim that the official NABA committee is necessarily
more stable or valid than an independent committee of professional
butterfly specialists. I don't believe it is.

The second positive reason for producing another names list is that
it will be a better list, at least in the sense of better reflecting
our current understanding of reality. This is certainly the reason why
the NABA First Edition needed to have an accompanying reevaluation of
the scientific names before it was realistic to produce a second edition.
We are told that the current NABA committee "will only consider
published data that is presented in a form that a knowledgeable reader
can independently assess in the paper at hand" and "we will only make
a change in the scientific name or status of any taxon on this list if
the published evidence presents a clear and compelling case for change".
That sounds very attractive to me in principle, but in practice it has proven
to be enormously difficult to carry out without intensive discussion
and careful training in interpreting such publications. Indeed, if there
is one thing that I wish our committee had more consistently erred on
the side of, it is that we had more consistently stuck to the published
evidence alone, rather than interpreting and adding to that evidence
through our own experience. But I feel it would have been fruitless to
treat each biological species problem like a case in a court of law. As a
person with a peripheral interest in forensic entomology, I can say that
there is a huge difference between law and science with respect to what
constitutes concepts like "evidence" or "proof". Nonetheless, I
sincerely wish this committee well if that is indeed what each of the
members ends up doing. I have some concerns, however. The chair of
that committee, Glassberg, is on record as saying that "in fact, there
is no right thing, as you can see, because all these people disagree,
intelligent people" (Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb 14th, 2000). If there
is no right thing, then there is little sense in striving to achieve it.

The third general reason for redoing taxonomic names has a more negative
connotation - it the achievement of some other agenda. It is obvious
that decisions to give species status to particular populations can
be fraught with political and economic consequences. The most common
case nowadays must be the description of a marginally different population
as a new species in order to give it, or its associated biota, better
protection under endangered species legislation. But that is a dangerous
game that can bring a whole conservation effort into disrepute. I imagine
that sharp lawyers employed by land developers will eventually be sniffing
around some of the more egregious cases that are out there. A committee
that is openly dedicated to conservation causes will have to be especially
careful to tread the fine line between good science and betraying their
cause. Another and more specific complicating issue to consider under
the general heading of "other agendas" is the fact that Opler and
Glassberg have competing and highly popular books. A whole society
and butterfly count system that is channeled by its president into using
a newly derived naming system of one of the books rather than the other
cannot help giving an extra boost to that book.

The forth general reason why someone might come up with a new name or
set of names is ego. Taxonomy is rife with the problem of people trying to
leave monuments to themselves. I would argue that, like greed in capitalism,
ego in taxonomy can be a positive driving factor if it is at a moderate
level. The problem with butterflies in temperate regions is that there is
probably more reason to lump than to split in any given case. Speaking as
a person who has been known to commit lumping (even though I have also
named new species and subspecies), I know it is a sure way to incur 
the wrath of life listers. I hope that the NABA names committee would 
find ways to strike a balance between recognizing biological reality 
versus the inexorable pressure to split species for well known 
faunas. In fact, this brings me back to the issue I raised at the end 
of the previous paragraph. Another aspect of ego is whether you have 
the most, best, or biggest of something. Every author
I have ever known has been inordinately proud of the total sales or impact
of their book, and I can say firmly that both Glassberg and Opler are
among them. I cannot shake the sense that thousands of new butterfly watchers
will be needlessly confused by butterfly names in part because they
happened to step into a crossfire of "mine is bigger than yours".

But now I need to get back to the basic problem. I have presented my view of
why it would do more harm than good to produce a formal NABA 
butterfly names list that tries to redo the work that Opler and 
Lafontaine have already done.
I have also tried to achieve two things: 1) giving people who want to know
what all this names list controversy is about a better sense of the 
complexities, and 2) eliciting some discussion, particularly with 
members of
the NABA names committee who I know are monitoring Leps-l. I agree with their
commitment "to a completely open process", and I am taking this opportunity
to make our own committee more open as well.

Felix Sperling


More information about the Leps-l mailing list