Early history

[Michael Gochfeld]

Robin has called attention to one of the great findings in
ethno-ecology, the fact that a New Guinea tribe KNEW the same things
that the ornithologist KNEW. I believe the original work was done by Tom
Gilliard who died much too young. It was much discussed when I worked in
the BIRD DEPARTMENT (later known as Ornithology) at the AMNH. 

Mike Gochfeld

Robin Leech wrote:
> 
> It is an innate thing of humans to name and/or categorize everything.  We
> cannot help ourselves. Reflect on what Ernst Mayr said of the New Guinea
> people:  Of 143 species of birds, they could name 142 (figures are close - I
> cannot recall the exact, but I can find them if someone wants them).  There
> were 2 insiginificantly different species that they considered to be one.
> 
> Our first classifications, and the items in each category, were relevant to
> humans more or less in a dichotomous key format:
>     -it is edible/not edible
>     -it is dangerous/not dangerous
>     -it is useful/not useful
> undsowieder.
> 
> It is not until the 17 hundreds AD that attempts were made to organize
> organisms into related groups.  These relationships could be expressed
> because the binomial nomenclature system was introduce.  Thus, all bears go
> into one genus, all spiders into another, and so on.  This is like our own
> binomenclatural system for humans - e.g., John Smith, though it should be
> Smith John (as the Chinese names go) to better reflect the generic and the
> specific relationships.  Common names, such as "robin" or "duck" do not
> reflect generic, family or phylogenetic relationships, hence the use of a
> Latin/Greek-based binomial nomenclature systems.
> 
> The early classifications with binomials represented "flat" relationships -
> that is, historical relationships were not considered.  These came later
> from Darwin/Wallace onward.  The phylogenetic structures could not have been
> built without the binomial nomenclature system, as there would have been no
> way to express relationships between organisms at each level in each
> categories.
> 
> Robin Leech
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Gochfeld" <gochfeld at eohsi.rutgers.edu>
> To: <Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca>
> Cc: "'lepsl'" <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>; "'altabugs'"
> <albertabugs at majordomo.srv.ualberta.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 10:37 AM
> Subject: BUGS: Early history
> 
> > Norbert's idealism comes shining through, communication among
> > scientists----probably not:
> >
> > "Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX" wrote:
> > >
> > > Something in the back of my feeble old mind crept to the front and
> caused me
> > > to reflect on taxonomy and nomenclature with the perhaps erroneous
> > > recollection that these noble tools were originally invented to
> facilitate
> > > communication among biologists (and everyone else with
> biological/natural
> > > history interests) and to facilitate the study of living organisms. I
> > > sometimes think these pursuits have taken on a life of their own and are
> > > pursued as an end onto themselves.
> > > Perhaps we need to remind ourselves of their "proper" place in the grand
> > > scheme of things. Sometimes it is indeed easy to lose sight of the
> forest
> > > because of all the trees :-) I wonder at times if the tail is wagging
> the
> > > dog :-) Blast away with impunity and gusto if you see it differently :-)
> > >
> >
> > So with gusto, if not impunity, I will suggest that the original
> > taxonomy was probably not much concerned with communication among
> > scientists but with cataloguing of things (and perhaps labelling natural
> > history cabinets which were much in vogue in educated circles).  They
> > were probably an integral part of exploration, and collectors were hired
> > to travel far afield and ship specimens (or even paintings) back to the
> > bearded wizards in Europe. Even though there were some fledgling
> > naturalists and namers of things in the Americas, a great many birds,
> > butterflies and plants were named by Linnaeas, Gmelin, etc.  I remember
> > as a pre-teen perusing a bird book and wondering why so many American
> > birds had been named by people who enver bothered to come here
> > (America).
> >
> > Some of the pre-Linnaean namers-of-things were cataloguing God's
> > creation. And they were probably none-too-happy about indeterminate
> > things that didn't seem to belong clearly to one species or another.
> >
> > Mike Gochfeld
> >

 
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