. etc, etc, etc,

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: <mbpi at juno.com>
To: <LEPS-L at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 11:24 PM
Subject: Re: [leps-talk] vs. Glassberg's books vs. renegade nomenclature,
vs. etc, etc, etc,


> Most recently, I have been wending my desultory way through the vast
> wasteland of scientific nomenclature and its omnipresent and oppressive
> "discrepancies" that strew the information highway like so much toilet
> paper shrouding the "adversaries" front yard...

These statements are meaningless.  Is this North American scientific
nomenclature you are talking about or somewhere else?   Popular literature
is not scientific literature.  Scientific nomenclature is not a set of
names one bestows on living things wily nilly.  They are technical terms
conveying systematic relationships.  They are to organisms what H2O and Au
are to elements.  When researchers discover that past systematic
understanding of organic relationship has been in error they are duty bound
to adjust the terms to the proper taxonomic alignments.   Researchers at
times differ on which alignments are correct.  Lay people have a problem
with these terms because they think they are names.  Yes, they are commonly
referred to as "names" even by scientists, but "name" is used here as slang
for what they really are - technical terms.

At the trinomial level all these scientific epithets are unchanged over the
centuries.   They _all_ apply to the exact same entity the originally did.
It has at times been found that someone else gave a different epithet to
the same biological entity at an earlier point in time, and in such cases
the earlier technical identifier takes "priority" over the latter - but the
ID attached to each entity remains exactly the same.   A synonomy just
exists. The most frequent realignment over the centuries is at the rank or
level of Genus.   This is where taxa are actually shifted to different
organic associations.   There is nothing anyone can do about this nor is
there anything anyone should do about this. -  unless we want some kind of
systematic dark ages.  Which it seems some do want - enter dumbing down.
Anti-science.

Now to common names. These are actual names.   Have you visited the SC-NABN
list of common names?   It is the most complete list on the planet of
US/Canadian butterfly/skipper common names is any format.  The vast
majority of these names have been around for a long time.  I think the
average lepster may be unaware that these taxa and their common names
exist.  A comparison of the SC-NABN, USGS & NABA common names lists will
show that they are probably 98% identical.  SC-NABN just lists hundreds
more of them as it lists hundreds more taxa.  Don't bitch about what you
refuse to utilize.

> I'm afraid "renegade nomenclature" exists throughout the ENTIRE
> taxanomical heirarchy, if one wishes to point a finger at one single
> instigator.

The phrase "renegade nomenclature" has been introduced onto this list serve
as it was lifted by me as a quote from a recent review of J. Glassberg's
BTB books in the latest issue of the Journal of the Lepidopterists'
Society - a society that has as its President the owner of THIS list serve.
One will have to read it in context to know how it was applied and thus
defined.

> And despite the fact that I don't even "pretend" to be a
> know-it-all, I'll be damned if the self-proclaimed "know-it-alls" are
> WILLING to HELP me weed through the discrepancies (!)

Hey, you don't have to convince me you are not a know it all.  I don't know
about "know-it-alls" but there are a number of people at Leps-talk who
spend a lot of time helping folks answer nomenclatorial (and many other)
questions - but you wouldn't know anything about that as you have refused
to participate there.  Don't bitch about what you refuse to utilize.

 So you all can wax
> pedantic as much as you like, but when push-comes-to shove...show me the
> money!

I have tried.  I have at least three times over the months personally
invited you to join and check out leps-talk.  You can lead a horse to
water....  Well, I guess some times one can't even do that.

> That being said, in response to Ron's attesting to setting up his
> leps-talk listserv in response to a need to get across his agenda (and
> there is nothing wrong with that)...

First of all that is a total falsehood.  The list sereve was the idea of
Harry Pavulaan - not me.  I ended up setting it up, thats all.   It is not
MY listserve.  What is my agenda?   Have I said?   Do you know?   I am not
to TILS what Glassberg is to NABA.

I, for one, can't even fathom the
> extreme folly of subscribing to another listserv!  The thought of
> receiving another 100 Korean emails for every 5 listserv-relevant
> postings, stops me short of ever subscribing to anything again.  How many
> pleas from Mr. Ugauaballo in Nigeria to transfer his monies into my bank
> account can a person stand?!
snip more fictitious bla, bla, bla

Apparently you do not belong to any Yahoo group.  I never receive any adds
from any Yahoo emails and Leps-talk and Moth-rah are configured (moderated)
so that the spamers can't post anything.    There are some folks I have
heard of that get adds with their Yahoo groups emails - but that is their
own fault because they don't know how to set their own computer to cut it
off or set their Yahoo account to not send them any.  Unlike leps-l one
can't even get attachments through our Leps-talk Yahoo group - or forwards
from other groups..

Ron




 
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