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  Re: why scientists don't just give up the names battle
From: "Eduardo Goncalves" edggon at hotmail.com> on 2001.07.08 at 16:15:43(6984)
C?mon, guys...

I know you must be driving crazy with all the names changing all the
time, but I don?t think we should try to freeze an evolving science. I know
sometimes it is painful when you have to change your concepts, but it is
part of the life.
The advent of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature can be
considered an important event in Botany, because Botany looked like the
Tower of Babel before it. The Code were designed to keep stability of names,
so we use the concept of priority. The correct name is the first effectively
published. The circunscription of names can change, but they follow rules
that can be understood if you want.
Some people think it would be great if we could use the "easiest" name,
instead of the earliest. I agree it would make some things easier, but we
would implode the stability. Who has to decide when something has to change?
What if someone is not happy? Can He/she change it again? Believe me: If
there we had not the Code, the names would change even more...
Let?s face it. We don?t have to write in our scientific books that
primitive humans had dinossaurs as pets just because almost everybody in
world really thinks it is true (blame Fred Flintstone!). Any misconception
should be corrected, even when more than half of the humans think it is
true. And what should be considered "majority"? I don?t think Chinese people
call Epipremnum as pothos. They will be considered majority in anything
soon! Is plant taxonomy for the whole Mankind or just for Americans?
We are paid to keep the names well applied, so we do it. If you want
imutable names, don?t use Linnean binomials! Call your plant Sliurneht, or
Grumpflilit or even Catiripapo... If you want to be scientific (that is what
you are doing when you say Pothos or Calla) you have to follow the law
(i.e., the Code). People has used this pseudoscience to sell plants.
Scientific names can rise the prices, because they give the impression that
they know exactly what they are selling, but it isn?t true. If plant sellers
are not able to offer a correct Linnean name for the plants they sell, they
SHOULD NOT USE IT, or they are just fooling people.
I can give you an example: Let?s suppose you have bought something called
Calla, a pink Calla. You can see some information about it on internet. It
says Calla is a circunboreal genus with only one species that use to grow in
bogs. So you killed your only Zantedeschia rehmanii treating it like it was
Calla palustris... That?s the problem in having horticultural names being
used like this...
Many of you in Aroid-L know that I am a plant taxonomist that do not love
all the aspects of the linnean taxonomy, mainly because it is not efficient
in dealing with evolving things. However, it is the best way we have to
describe biodiversity, so I still use it.
I agree that some of plant taxonomists change names for some weird
vanity, but most of us are working hard to make the overwhelming diversity
more understandable. Do not blame us. Nature itself was already pretty
confused when we arrived with the tags! It is easy when you consider a few
plants you have in your garden, but try to face the hell in the wild...

Nomenclatural cheers,

Eduardo.

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