
Against the naming of fungi (2013) - tosh
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878614613000871
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faitswulff
Pretty interesting. The reasoning is basically because people like to
categorize fungi based on their morphology, which varies wildly depending on
conditions and life stage:

> The morphology of a colony growing on a leaf or an agar surface is a
> snapshot of an organism at a particular stage of development. The
> organization of mycelia and the shapes and sizes of spores are modified by
> temperature, water and nutrient availability, acidity, and other
> environmental variables (Slepecky & Starmer 2009). This means that
> mycologists employ a lot of subjectivity in determining which features of
> phenotype are the ones that segregate species.

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cbkeller
> For 250 years mycologists have tried to reconcile fungal diversity with the
> Linnean fantasy of a divine order throughout nature that included
> unambiguous species. This effort has failed and today's taxonomy rests on an
> unstable philosophical foundation.

Wow, I knew there were similar problems for prokaryotes (esp. w/ horizontal
gene transfer), but didn't know it extended to fungi and never quite thought
about it that way.

~~~
koliber
It extends far further than that. There are cases of interspecies breeding in
mammals (A + B = C). What species are the offspring (C + C = C?)? What if such
offspring continue to breed? Sometimes, the offspring are not sterile! Do they
become a new species. What if, over a few generations, you get a healthy mix
of (CCBA + ACBC = ????)?

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear#Taxonomy_and_evolut...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear#Taxonomy_and_evolution)

The idea of categorizing things is a convenience that our minds and our
society employ to keep things simple. It works in a large number of
circumstances. However, it is important to realize that these categories are
not 100% rigid and that situations arise that are not simple to categorize.
The result is sometimes broadening the definition of a particular category,
creating a new category, or ignoring the uncomfortable situation. In reality,
it is important to acknowledge that reality does not answer to our whims and
needs to categorize things and just accept that clear lines can't always be
drawn.

~~~
grawprog
Then there's also species with distinct morphological populations within the
se habitat.

[http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~schluter/stickleback/stickleback_...](http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~schluter/stickleback/stickleback_species_pairs/Stickleback_Species_Pairs.htm)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4353498/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4353498/)

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poulsbohemian
We attended a meeting of the Seattle Mycological Society this past summer and
our novice ears perked up at the discussions around names. You would hear
speakers attempt to use the scientific name and set off debate, but use the
common name to achieve understanding, and then would proceed to use some
descriptive term in the event that it was sub-species or variation. So, while
perhaps scientifically frustrating in its lack of rigor, using those common
names plus descriptors certainly fixed it for everyone apart from the
practicing professional mycologists.

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mitchtbaum
Who has enough influence in the field of mycology to drive a shift from "Latin
binomials" to "digital codes"?

~~~
geoalchimista
I would argue against this idea because:

1\. The mapping from Latin binomial to digital code is not a difficult problem
if there is a universally used, standardized database of fungi.

2\. Human mind does not think in digital code. The name exists for human
understanding not for machine.

3\. Latin is a dead language that does not evolve. The meaning of a word in
any living language (e.g., English) would potentially change over time.

Rather, I think the real problem is that Latin should be revived in the
biology curriculum. One does not even need to learn verb conjugation to know
what species names mean because only nouns and adjectives are in the
binomials.

~~~
TotempaaltJ
As far as I understand, most Latin used in naming of species isn't Latin at
all.

~~~
geoalchimista
Classical Greek in Latinized spelling, I would add. Still, the noun/adjective
declensions are Latin.

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ggm
You don't have to run faster than a #2175, you only have to run faster than
the other #3306 to avoid being eaten...

~~~
koliber
Use feature detection instead.

You don't need to know what it is called. All you need to know is that it is
big, brown, has four legs, big teeth, is gnarling, and is staring at you like
you look at a freshly-made butter croissant.

