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Species Name Changes Against ICZN Code


DPS Ammonite

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While researching a question on species naming rules, I came across an interesting story about Turkey making changes to species names against the ICZN Code because Turkey found the names offensive. Names referring to Armenia and Kurdistan were changed. 

 

See quotes from a BBC article as mentioned in The Armenian Weekly:

https://armenianweekly.com/2009/03/04/learnings-from-the-sari-gelin-case/

 

6ED99E3C-FF33-427B-A5B2-3ABBBAE8CA03.png

 

Can you imagine the outcry amongst scientists if the names of Megalonxy jeffersonii or Washingtonia filifera (the only native palm in Arizona) were changed because some in the US found the names of slaveholders, Presidents Washington and Jefferson, offensive. 
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In my opinion, science should not take into account politics, religions or any other subject outside its field. A scientific name is a scientific name. If we accept these changes, scientific names are useless ! Their main purpose is to recognize them throughout the world whatever our language... That’s my opinion.
 
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2 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

 

 

Can you imagine the outcry amongst scientists if the names of Megalonxy jeffersonii or Washingtonia filifera (the only native palm in Arizona) were changed because some in the US found the names of slaveholders, Presidents Washington and Jefferson, offensive. 

I'm not sure non-US scientists would be as up in arms about that.

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Renaming species for "political correctness" reasons would be a great way to destroy taxonomy.  There is an endless supply of reasons to be offended.  How about the fact that many more species are named for men than women?  Maybe we should make a list of all the species named after men and rename half of them for women?  The whole point of the system of rules based on priority is to maintain stability so people will know exactly what species is being discussed.  It's hard enough to keep track of name changes for valid reasons (synonymies, revisions of genera, etc) without having changes every few years based on who doesn't like this or that person or gender or race or whatever.  Anyone who would support that is not a biologist (or a paleontologist).

 

Don

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There is already precedent for keeping with names as assigned. A prime example would be an eyeless Slovenian beetle named in honour of a particularly nasty individual in WWII. As the initial naming did not violate the rules, attempts to rename it have been rejected. 

 

There will likely always be some form of politics in naming, as is human nature (Aristotle's Zoon politikon). If treated as signifiers breaking with their initial referent, it may go some length to allow for some degree of objective reassociation. 

 

Of course, the issue over naming in general is not a settled one in the philosophy of language. Binomial nomenclature would more align with the descriptivism of Frege, Russell, and Searle whereby a name refers to some object that, by consensus of speakers, a group of descriptions sufficiently and uniquely satisfies. It would not, however, satisfy the conditions as set out by Kripke whereby one would have to ask if there is an a priori necessity and/or an a posteriori contingency whereby the meaning of the name can be discovered through testing. 

 

EDIT: and, it should be noted, that scientific theory -- as a branch of philosophy -- is descriptivist in nature; it does not require a priori proofs to proceed. 

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Ya, what Kane said^^^^^:blink::fear::blink:

There's no limit to what you can accomplish when you're supposed to be doing something else

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"A species by any other name would smell as sweet."

- NorthernSharks, Forum Bard. :P 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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1 minute ago, Kane said:

"A species by any other name would smell as sweet."

- NorthernSharks, Forum Bard. :P 

Perhaps.  But suppose someone named a vial of pig manure as "rose extract" and you opened it and took a deep sniff.  Names are not entirely arbitrary, nor are arbitrary changes without effect.

 

Don

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Just name every species something like Adamitella adamum. 

Then nobody would get any of them wrong ever.:)

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1 minute ago, FossilDAWG said:

Perhaps.  But suppose someone named a vial of pig manure as "rose extract" and you opened it and took a deep sniff.  Names are not entirely arbitrary, nor are arbitrary changes without effect.

 

Don

I was in jest with Kevin on that one. ;) 

But, no, naming conventions are rarely arbitrary per se, but only gain in significance and acceptance once it enters a broader consensus (as just about any term introduced into a language). Setting aside error or a bad prank, naming a vial of pig manure "rose essence" falls way outside a range of reasonable consensus. But, to be technical, naming or insisting on any conceptual division may be classed as arbitrary at least on the grounds that such names and divisions are constructs that do not antedate human language. We agree to them for the purposes of general utility, since without that we'd never be able to communicate! :D 

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11 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Can you imagine the outcry amongst scientists if the names of Megalonxy jeffersonii or Washingtonia filifera (the only native palm in Arizona) were changed because some in the US found the names of slaveholders, Presidents Washington and Jefferson, offensive. 

Woahh woahh don’t go giving people ideas lol... I’ve seen people march for less :heartylaugh:. Self victimization is the newest trend in young America :wacko:. Good point tho!!! Science is science!! 

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. . . . . . . and because Turkey is calling them something else changes what? Does the rest of the world care? They can call them whatever they want -- nobody really cares. If they discover new coprolites in Turkey will they name them after Turkey? "What is the average air speed of an unladen African swallow?" is a better question.

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

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14 minutes ago, Mark Kmiecik said:

 Does the rest of the world care? They can call them whatever they want -- nobody really cares. If they discover new coprolites in Turkey will they name them after Turkey? 

Well, obviously some people do care, such as those in the scientific community who oppose the politicization that goes with these name changes, Armenians, and the OP. ;) 

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2 minutes ago, Kane said:

Well, obviously some people do care, such as those in the scientific community who oppose the politicization that goes with these name changes, Armenians, and the OP. ;) 

They are bringing politics into science. Uncalled for and an insult to the scientific community worldwide. 

 

 

Mark.

 

Fossil hunting is easy -- they don't run away when you shoot at them!

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Just now, Mark Kmiecik said:

They are bringing politics into science. Uncalled for and an insult to the scientific community worldwide. 

Indeed, which is why the statement of "nobody really cares" is inaccurate. However, it would not be the first -- and doubtfully the last -- time politics interferes with science. 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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I suspect that some scientists are bringing politics into science by the creative names given to new species. I wonder if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought that it was a honor to have slime beetles named after them?  Link

 

Of any US president, Obama has the most species named after him including that of a blood fluke and a parasitic worm: link

 

Here’s an article

about a moth named after Trump. link

 

Lots of interesting new species get named after celebrities: the good, the bad and the ugly.

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My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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14 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

I suspect that some scientists are bringing politics into science by the creative names given to new species. I wonder if George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld thought that it was a honor to have slime beetles named after them?  Link

 

Of any US president, Obama has the most species named after him including that of a blood fluke and a parasitic worm: link

 

Here’s an article

about a moth named after Trump. link

 

Lots of interesting new species get named after celebrities: the good, the bad and the ugly.

I think most public figures in this age of social media are pretty much inured to the (dubious) honours they get or else they wouldn't last very long. :D I was actually thinking of these examples after I read your initial post. There have even been occasions where scientists will name species after their scientific nemeses!

 

One can suppose that scientists are human beings with political views just like anyone else. A less charitable view would be that those who choose to use their "naming rights" to be cheeky, satirical, or make political statements might be doing a somewhat childish disservice to the privilege of naming a new taxon. But as scientists are human beings, and humans have their own motivations and ego, we should not be surprised by the wide variation of motivations that go into naming. Of course, revising taxons for political reasons post facto is simply unnecessary and veers into serious ethical questions. 

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A major reason for species being named after celebrities and politicians is that the scientists’ finds are more likely to get noticed in the news. 

My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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4 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

A major reason for species being named after celebrities and politicians is that the scientists’ finds are more likely to get noticed in the news. 

That, too. :( With more competitive and declining funding, generating public interest by doing this is a bit of a Hail Mary to put pressure on allocating more funding. We've seen the waves of those who become celebrity academics in order to garner more funding. At times, it compromises research in some disciplines as it may appeal to shock value or the mores of the times. :shrug:

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7 hours ago, Kane said:

If treated as signifiers breaking with their initial referent, it may go some length to allow for some degree of objective reassociation. 

I usually try to figure out the meaning of what our members post.  

I enjoy listening to our member’s passions even if I do not understand them. Kane, what is meant by above quote? My reading comprehension skills sometimes deteriorate rapidly outside of the paleontology and geology realm. 

My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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That reminds me of this little guy:

 

5cb8e11bf11a5_hitlersbeetle.jpg.9d8afa99437538a81f6bd9dda4f7c468.jpg

 

 

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Carabidae
Subfamily: Trechinae
Genus: Anophthalmus
Species: Anophthalmus hitleri
Conservation Status: Not officially assessed, possibly threatened due to collection
 
Yes that little insect was named after Adolf Hitler in 1933 by German engineer and beetle collector Oscar Scheibel (1881 - 1953).
But nope, you can't change the name...
 
 
"There have been several proposals after the end of the World War II to rename the beetle, however they have all been rejected by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature*. To retain consistency in scientific sources, Latin designations of species cannot be changed once a name has been registered, unless the name had violated the established rules back when it was initially registered. Apparently, this was not the case with Anophthalmus hitleri."
 
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1 minute ago, DPS Ammonite said:

I usually try to figure out the meaning of what our members post.  

I enjoy listening to our member’s passions even if I do not understand them. Kane, what is meant by above quote? My reading comprehension skills sometimes deteriorate rapidly outside of the paleontology and geology realm. 

 

 

 

My pleasure. :) 

 

From semiotics, there is a signifier (a word) and a signified (the object or image). We build associations with words on that basis, so that when I say "tree" you get an image in your mind. It may not be the same species of tree, but we understand each other. The elasticity of language allows us to make different associations with words. In this case, let us assume a fictional example of a new leech: Piscicolida nixoni. Obviously for some, it's a comment on Nixon. However, I am free to decode that in any way I choose without even linking it to Nixon in terms of his person or policies! In this way, we can break the connection between the initial signifier-signified relationship. In some cases, the connection is tenuous already (and hence a lot of neat stuff on postmodernism, Baudrillard, and the simulacrum). A good example of a broken referent would be watermelon or banana flavoured candies: they have the shape and name of the referent, but bear no resemblance to the fruit in terms of taste!

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22 minutes ago, Abstraktum said:

That reminds me of this little guy:

 

5cb8e11bf11a5_hitlersbeetle.jpg.9d8afa99437538a81f6bd9dda4f7c468.jpg

 

 

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Family: Carabidae
Subfamily: Trechinae
Genus: Anophthalmus
Species: Anophthalmus hitleri
Conservation Status: Not officially assessed, possibly threatened due to collection
 
Yes that little insect was named after Adolf Hitler in 1933 by German engineer and beetle collector Oscar Scheibel (1881 - 1953).
But nope, you can't change the name...

Kane hinted about this one: “eyeless Slovenian beetle named in honour of a particularly nasty individual in WWII”.

 

Naming a beetle after Hitler may have been an ironic acknowledgment of Hitler’s interest in another type of Beetle.

 

I believe that the beetle is threatened due to collectors that are interested in its namesake. 

 

My goal is to leave no stone or fossil unturned.   

See my Arizona Paleontology Guide    link  The best single resource for Arizona paleontology anywhere.       

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This discussion brings to mind something I read long ago in the New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources Memoir 7 Part 2 (1961), "Organisms attached to Montoya Corals", by Rousseau Flower.  Dr. Flower was a noted eccentric; one story I recall was that he was "uninvited" from the American Museum of Natural History for using a pellet gun to shoot flies off the walls in his office.  Not sure if that story is actually true but I did hear it from a contemporary of his, and he was an expert marksman.  Anyway, here is what he had to say (Memoir 7, pgs 103-104) about naming some small nondescript organic structures he found as epifauna on some Ordovician corals.  I'll have to type it out but it here goes.  The last paragraph is particularly "inspiring", I think.

 

"Obviously names were required for these 19 disparate organic remains, if only for intelligible discussion.  The selection of new genera and species names was thus necessary.  Some considerations involved in the selection of the names deserves brief mention.  There are a number of individuals who have set themselves up as authorities on matters of taste in the erection of names.  Their qualifications in this regard have never been made clear.  They seem to differ somewhat in details but agree quite generally that the selection of a name is a matter that should be given profound thought.  The recommendations stop barely short of fasting, prayer, and a night-long vigil, approaching thus rather closely the initiation into medieval knighthood.  The authorities certainly agree that one should thumb through dictionaries of Greek and Latin in an effort to find a name indicative of affinities, descriptive as to form, suggesting some resemblance, or indicating occurrence.  Once such a name is selected, the author must then ascertain from the literature that it is not preoccupied; if it is he loses two turns and has to go back and begin over again.  The writer has long held the conviction that the selection of a name is a purely secondary matter, and that it is a sad mistake to give to the procedure the time and attention that might far better be devoted to the systematic investigations, one outcome of which is the discovery of the need of new names.  The claim that such a course is meritorious is particularly absurd in paleontology, a field in which our descriptive work is yet barely more than begun.  As Needham (1930) pointed out, a name is a name, not a catalog of characters of an organism.  Sinclair (1953) rightly states that, after all, paleontology is the study of fossils and not the study of names of fossils.

     The author has long felt that the selection of names is a proper field for relaxation, and not properly an end in itself.  Surely there is no place for regulations governing the erection of names beyond the simple matters of syntax involved in the general rule that, whatever their ultimate origin, genera are Latin or Latinized nouns, and specific names either nouns or adjectives in the same tounge.

     Two matters seem to distress the self-appointed authorities beyond all others: First, the combination of roots from the Latin and the Greek, second, the naming of species and genera for persons.  This first matter seems a bit odd in view of two facts: First, the Romans themselves borrowed liberally from the Greek when need arose, and second, it is a bit absurd to bar Greek when we have Latinized words from a;most every other language, including not only the main languages of Europe, but also Chinese, Japanese, American Indian, and Eskimo.  True, many are involved in place names, but it seems odd to balk at the relatively euphonious Ovoceras and swallow Shamattawaceras or Tofangoceras.  Objections to naming genera and species for persons seem to have an equally unsubstantial basis, and in this practice I have taken particular delight.

     In the preceeding study of corals a number of specific names are descriptive, but where such names did not suggest themselves, or those suggested seemed already sadly overworked, the species have been named for beautiful women, particularly deserving of honor.  In the present work the dilemma was worse; a few names are suggestive of form or appearance, but one could hardly draw upon affinities, when affinities remain uncertain, or range, when it was obvious that our present concept of range falls far short of the truth.  However, I was not faced here with the necessity of selecting those whose names should necessarily be perpetuated, nor was I dealing with an application of names that was necessarily complimentary.  One body, which resembles a fossil wart, I have named for a certain international figure whose activities in Washington made me seriously late in arriving at the U.S. National Museum.  As for the others, most are unworthy of mention; to those who recognize their names, I can only say that those also serve who only stand and wait."

 

BTW the "fossil wart" was named Kruschevia.  Other genera are obviously named for various paleontologists with which Flower had disagreements.  Examples include Slocomia, Mooreopsis, Eliasites, Ivesella, Goldringella, and Fentonites, among others.  It seems rather mean to preoccupy someone's name by associating it with small nondescript organisms of unknown affinity or significance.

 

Don

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For more commentary on this subject:

 

Who Said Paleontologists Aren't Funny?

 

Obamadon? Now Ancient Creatures Can Get More Political...

 

All I can say is, if Paul, John, and Ringo got creatures named for them, why do I see nothing named for George? Time for somebody to fix that, if they haven’t already. George’s musical contributions have been neglected too frequently already. 

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