And what is in a name?

Grkovich, Alex agrkovich at tmpeng.com
Mon Jul 16 08:41:45 EDT 2001


Now we have a new argument created by the anti-scientists: First,
"common/scientific names", now "lumpers/splitters". I am a "splitter". A
"lumper" is one who has neither motivation nor the inspiration, and is
probably too indifferent, to learn scientific names.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Ron Gatrelle [SMTP:gatrelle at tils-ttr.org]
> Sent:	Saturday, July 14, 2001 4:33 AM
> To:	Leps-l; Carolina Leps
> Cc:	TAXACOM
> 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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