Torches, torches, 'round me torches ...

From
Date
Reply-To
The following message bounced around for some days owing to the listserver
failure at NHM and was then returned to me with a long and totally cryptic
list of error messages. It refers to the 'Burn the Code' debate last week,
and since the book-burners' torches may still be lit (this being Yuletide
and all), I'd better repeat it: 

To all you who have lit your torches: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE POINTING THAT
THING!! 

Or, rather, open the book before you burn it, and read at least the
Introduction! The ICZN is concerned with names, not with taxonomic
concepts, ranks, etc. The first two points in the Introduction make that 
clear: 

"(1) The Code refrains from infringing upon taxonomic judgement, which 
must not be made subject to regulation or restraint.

(2) Nomenclature does not determine the rank to be accorded to any group 
of animals but, rather, provides the name that is to be used for the 
taxon at whatever rank it is placed."

That's all there is to it. The Code is designed to interfere minimally
with changing concepts and ideas. As long as we use language for
communication, we will need the Code (or something like it). When we all
communicate by a global neuronic network interconnecting our brains, we
may pulp (not burn, please!) the Code. But if we 'only' decide not to
design ranks any more, the code can be easily modified to take that into
account. In fact, the ICZN doesn't even bother about taxa above family
level, so what's the fuss? Burning the Code because you don't like
supraspecific ranks is like burning the Oxford English Dictionary because
you don't like Shakespeare. 

But even if I happen to know the relative rank of "Vertebrata",
"Carnivora", "Chordata", "Deuterostomia", "Felidae", "Animalia",
"Fissipedia", and "Mammalia", my cat (who fits all categories) would be
terribly confused if he were exposed to these terms without any indication
of their relative rank. So would I, with the 99% of suprageneric names
that I'm not familiar with.  Abandoning the rank concepts of family,
order, etc., reeks of the same cladist plot that has made paraphyletic
taxa and ancestral taxa suspect concepts. If it cannot be defined in a
cladogram, it doesn't exist. Or, as the good old military rule-of-thumb
has it: if map and terrain don't agree, the map has preference. Now you
may light your torches again! 


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Stefan Bengtson
Institute of Earth Sciences
(Historical Geology & Palaeontology)
Norbyvagen 22
S-752 36 Uppsala
Sweden

tel. +46-18 18 27 62 (work)
     +46-18 54 99 06 (home)
     +46-18 18 27 49 (fax)