
Why Do Taxonomists Write the Meanest Obituaries? (2016) - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/66/clockwork/why-do-taxonomists-write-the-meanest-obituaries-rp2
======
mmirate
This article really makes taxonomy sound like life-sciences' bikeshedding.

------
rectangletangle
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem)

>The species problem is the set of questions that arises when biologists
attempt to define what a species is. Such a definition is called a species
concept; there are at least 26 recognized species concepts

~~~
Myrmornis
Agreed, there are fundamental problems in this field. Many biologists for some
reason will not accept that, when populations A and B are not sympatric, the
process of evolution does not offer any obvious definition of "belong to the
same species" in the question "do A and B belong to the same species?"

But it's very tricky. On the opposite side from the theoretical/philosophical
considerations of what entities participating in the evolutionary process
should have what names, there are extremely valid pragmatic considerations: if
we are to save habitat and certain lineages then it's helpful to just agree on
the damn name and get on with the difficult work of conservation biology which
is conducted in the world of human politics, not the pages of a systematics
journal. And in fact in many cases it will help the survival of a
geographically isolated lineage to err in the direction of "splitting" it out
as a separate species, regardless of pointy-headed academic considerations.

------
dankohn1
You can find a similar level of obsession and complaint in CNCF's efforts to
curate a cloud native landscape:
[https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape](https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape)

(I'm the primary author.)

------
gweinberg
TL;DR; because they deserve them.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
(Senior moment: reading the title in the front page, mixing up taxonomists
with taxidermists and wondering why that should be contentious ;-)

Amusing, but it's not really surprising that people who are attracted to that
sort of thing would get stroppy about sloppy work. Actually, organized armies
on opposing sides of some contentious bone would not be far-fetched ...

Reminds me of a book about musical invective I've lost somewhere.

