And what is in a name?

[Kenn Kaufman]

I'm not opposed to art or philosophy, and if you're being
artistic or philosophical then you can refer to a butterfly
(or any other organism) by any name you like.  (I took
some young naturalists to northeastern Mexico a few
years ago, and these kids applied the name "Crimson
Prophet of Doom" to what I was calling Biblis hyperia.
Sure, why not?)

BUT -- if you want to communicate on a scientific level
-- read Ron's post below.  Don't proof-read it, don't
quibble with the grammar, just read what he's saying.
He nails the reasons why scientific names are, in fact,
more valid than anyone's vernacular names.

Kenn Kaufman
kennk at ix.netcom.com
Tucson, Arizona


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Gatrelle <gatrelle at tils-ttr.org>
To: Leps-l <Leps-l at lists.yale.edu>; Carolina Leps <carolinaleps at duke.edu>
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at usobi.org>
Date: Saturday, July 14, 2001 1:30 AM
Subject: Re: And what is in a name?


>Anne Kilmer wrote
>snip
>>  ...with the mutability of scientific names, at the mercy
>> of lumpers and splitters...
>
>
>Mutable: "given to changing, or constantly changing."
>Immutable: "unchanging, unalterable, changeless."
>
>There is a big difference between knowing enough to be a good editor and
>being creative enough to be a good author, being able to write a song but
>not sing it, conduct the music but not play or create it.  I have written
>hundreds of articles and several booklets - all non leps (including a local
>weekly newspaper column for two years, which I quit because it was too much
>work). My editors always love my material and punchy style but hate my
>grammar, punctuation, spelling.  I needed them, they made me look literate.
>
>Some of the dumbest people I know have a lot of knowledge or can spell real
>good. Knowledge, wisdom, insight, understanding - different animals.
>Knowledge is cheep - its a dime a dozen. Wisdom is rare - it can't be
>faked.  Insight is what makes great councilors great - others don't like
>what it sees in them.  To understand - is to have arrived.
>
>To let Anne's statements (made in her usual cutesy but sarcastic way) slide
>by is to give everyone else the impression that I have bowed my head, been
>put in my place, and acquiesced to the higher power.  She is very wrong and
>does not have the faintest idea what she is talking about when it comes to
>"scientific names" and how they function. She does not understand.
>
>Anyone who does not own a copy of The International Code of Zoological
>Nomenclature (ICZN) Vol. 4 should not even be opening their mouth about
>taxonomy. Even many who do have a copy don't _understand_  how it works.
>Taxonomists are not free to do what ever they want. The International Code
>of Zoological Nomenclature is structured to bring immutability to organic
>defination and communication. Popular butterfly authors often
>work outside these rules and have screwed things up quite a bit.
>
>Gochfeld also posted recently that, " Ron, we've been down the name line
>often before. A scientific name is NO MORE OR LESS correct [than a common
>name] and certainly no more stable over time than any other name which
>people bestow on what they think they understand as what may be a species
>(or other level taxon)."
>
>To this I say that we obviously have not been down it far enough or long
>enough because people still just don't it - understand.
>
>At this point I do not even know if it is worth going into it. I have sat
>on this post for awhile wondering if I should even post this much. Then
>there is issue of space on a list like this.
>
>I have a question line for the people who want to discuss taxonomy and its
>nomenclatorial procedures. Do you own a copy of the ICZN (bible), have you
>read it, do you understand it, have you ever or do you work with it, is it
>a familiar every day tool to you? If not you are like a guy off the street
>putting on boxing gloves and getting in ring with Mike Tyson. A person with
>no license getting behind the wheel of a car. There are many
>entomology professors who don't know about _doing_ taxonomy.
>
>An organism is discoverd. It is then scientifically identified by a term
>that is based on Latin OR Greek OR a combiantion of both - or neither (e.g.
>an American Indian name left as is - cullasaja).
>
>When the science of systematic nomenclature was introduced it was so
>primative then that confusion was a common occurance. Many original
>descriptions were very brief and not accompanied by even a cartoonist
>painting - we were like babies learning to walk. Many of these are also so
>rare and obscure that some later workers did not even know they existed or
>if so, where to find them. But the system was brilliant.
>
>Our example will be Papilio ajax.  After its coining it was found that when
>the word ajax was applied (in 1758) that several different butterflies
>were unknowingly included under this epithet.  Eventually no one could tell
>to which it actually was affixed!
>Arguments over ajax ensued. Finally, it was wisely decided that we could
>never know to which organism that term was meant to apply. The scientific
>community went to court so to speak and ruled that rather than apply ajax
>improperly, ajax was banned in regard to several species of swallowtails
>involved - glaucus, marcellus, asterius, troilus.  So how were these "ajax"
>to now be known?  What NEW names were given to these?  NONE.
>1) It was never known in the first place what "ajax" was referring
>to so technically NO SINGLE butterfly was ever named this.
> 2) A new name was not sought. Rather an OLD name. Taxonomic names very
>rarely move FORWARD. If something is found defective -
>a nomen nudum, nomen dubium - the taxonomist MUST make a search for the
>oldest available name and he AND ALL OTHERS MUST use that one valid name.
>(There are exceptions and the new edition strongly leans to preserving
>names held in long usage. This is a very complicated and legalistic process
>that I am nutshelling.)
>
>That is the immutable goal of the system - find the oldest and stick with
>it forever. What ever the oldest available and valid word-term for a
>subspecies/species that is its name forever. Sometimes we are still finding
>that occasionally a name WE have been using (say turnus 1771), is the NEW
>name and that we  should have been using the OLDER name (here glaucus) as
>THAT is the correct name by the Code. Glaucus is The immutable epithet -
>which is why we HAD to RETURN to it.  Nothing changed - popular
>workers had just screwed up by using the incorrect name - turnus.
>
>This is like a child born and being given to the wrong parent at birth.
>The child was born a Smith - but (because of human error) its first
>10 years was spent as a Jones. When the mistake was realized the
>child was given to its proper parents and is now know correctly
>as Smith. The friends who only knew it as Jones would (ignorantly)
>say, Oh you have a NEW name. The child would say, no I have found
>my OLD and REAL name. They of course, would not _understand_
>because of what they did not know. Some might still want to,
>and would,  call him/her Jones.
>
>This applies to genus names often. All butterflies were once just genus
>Papilio. Eventually we saw that was wrong. Wrong how?  Because evolution
>had not made them all Papilio. The taxonomist could call them a "term" he
>chose (within the rules) but HAD to categorize them in groups as
>God and evolution made them.  This gave rise to hairstreaks becoming
>Thecla rather then Papilio. This lumping was found incorrect also.
>Now, there are still Thecla but only the ones evolutionally related to
>the FIRST taxon in that genus to which the genus label Thecla was
>affixed. Thecla, like Papilio, is the immutable epithet for their
>respective
>genera. When new genera are discovered (uncovered) the proper evolutionary
>units MUST be placed in (moved to) them. When a species is transferred to
>another genus it is simply the scientifically demanded aligning of
>nomenclature with what nature has made - the original parent.
>
>I'll quit here. There is nothing capricious about scientific terms (unlike
>common names).  What the lay person sees as random mutable name changes are
>not such at all. They are REQUIRED adjustment to bring the system to its
>immutalble conslusion (for this time and space).  The name appalachia
>affixed to that organism in the southern US we commonly call the
>Appalachian Brown will never change ever - it can't be. It is immutable as
>that is the only and oldest scientific term available to it. The common
>name can, and likely will, be changed many times in the next thousand
>years. But not appalachia. It will stay in Satyroides too and can only be
>MOVED (not "renamed") to a different genus if the evolutionary evidence
>says that is where it belongs.
>
>Bottom line. 1) Species/subspecies level. A newly discovered animal is
>given a new name - within very strict parameters of the ICZN naming
>process.  This is (basically) the only time we get "new" names. A named
>animal that we have known as xus for twenty years suddenly appears as wus
>in the popular literature - the uneducated see this as a new name. It is
>not - it is a return to an older name - the original immutable one.  2) A
>transfer of organisms into a new or another genus (or species due to a
>change in rank to subspecies) occurs through new evolutionary
>understanding. This is not always agreed upon by all "experts" and so more
>than one alignment may be found. However, the original epithet given to the
>individual organism stays the same as it is immutable. In time all the
>adjustments (from finding and adopting the original immutable epithets or
>from understanding the true evolutionary relationships) will provide an
>everlasting unchanging nomenclature. Scientific IDs (commonly called names)
>are the only correct class of labels for animals, plants, and minerals.
>Common names aren't.  Au   is and will be the correct "name" for what that
>element is no matter what it is called in any language (in English, Gold).
>Antiopa is the correct term for the animal no matter what it is called in
>any language.
>
>Ron Gatrelle,
>taxonomist, zoologist, ordained minister, certified prosthetic dental
>technician,
>author, speaker, teacher. I get paid to do all of these.
>
>
>
>
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