Stability of names...

[Michael Gochfeld]

I appreciated Niklas' calling attention to the Cantino paper. 

If the scientific name MUST reflect the current state of understanding 
of relationships, then it is an awkward structure indeed. Having grown 
up in the biological species culture and phylogenetic systematics, it 
only bothers me a little. 

After all for some taxa we have complete COMMON NAMES which could be the 
stable unit of communication.  Common names have been more stable over a 
century than scientific names for New Jersey butterflies. 

Maybe the numbering system is appropriate.  Each phyllum would have a 
number, then each class, order etc., so that the relationships could be 
traced back through a hierarchical numbering system. But since there are 
so many hierarchies and so much disagreement about higher taxa, the 
numbering system doesn't buy anything that I can see.  

One possibility is that names could be left alone and phenetic diagrams 
used to depict relationships.

However, when I looked at this for gulls, I found that the 44 (more or 
less) species, produced about a dozen cladograms depending on which 
characters were included. About the best that could be derived were a 
few subgroupings (that might be subgenera). 

So like most things that generate a lot of opinions, there probably 
isn't a good answer. 

Mike Gochfeld