WAS A Leper?

Ron Gatrelle gatrelle at tils-ttr.org
Fri Jul 13 14:07:30 EDT 2001


M.B. Prondzinski wrote


> It should be "Odors" as in "Odo"nates (!)  Let's use the correct
> olfactory term...
>
> See, we're still arguing about "correct" versus scientific, versus
> common, versus nicknames, versus....  Arrgh!!!!
>
> I give up...


As humans we all do a very interesting thing. We ask and want to know. For
those with a bit keener curiosity, they want to know in more specifics - or
accurately. Correct has several connotations depending on the theme. Here
correct is synonymous with accurate.  This Leper or Lepper or Odors or
Oders thread is a spontaneous test, that without giving thought to it in
advance, in hindsight reveals - by the number who jumped on it and their
various inputs to it - not only the instinctive curiosity and creativity of
man - but his drive for accuracy. So, arrgh!!! ?  NO. hurrah! We _can_
still reason after all. Don't give up (in).

Someday, unfortunately far off, yet surely to occur, there will arise a
keener generation that via latent (but intrinsic) curiosity will have freed
themselves from the dumbded down butterflying of today and once again
discovered the science of lepidopterology.  This future generation will
have a lament though. It will be due to the number of subspecies (which
evolutionally, is what all lepidopteran organic units are) that needlessly
went extinct simply because those who saw them did not behold them. They
saw without noticing, reported without knowing, cared without helping. If
this generation could be brought back in the future to realize the damage
they did by their inattention to taxonomic detail - they would simply say
that they were sorry but they just didn't know. To which the future
lepidopterists' response would be two pronged - That is because you were
not told (by today's field guides) but also because you did not ask (the
refusal to seek depth).

Not only can we not report that which we do not know, we can not protect it
either.
Ron

Post Script.  "When I was a child I spoke, understood, and thought as a
child. But when I became an adult I put away childish things."  I
Corinthians 13:11  There is a lot of money to be made in children's books
though.


 
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