Subject: Re: Bird splits
Date: Feb 2 17:37:36 1996
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


David Wright wrote, and forwarded from tweeters:

>Dennis,
>
>As you were involved in this discussion previously, thought I'd give
>you the option of wading through this part.

Thanks, David. I enjoyed reading your post and basically agree with it. I
think your statement below probably sums it up.

>Right now, I think it is fair to say that
>the majority of non-systematist ornithologists are only using the *names*,
>not the *systematics* -- and it is *convenient* to have a committee to
>decide which name to use. (Not to single out ornithologists -- the same
>is true for mammalogists, herpetologists, etc.)

The reason it is "convenient," is because we've just got to be able to
communicate, so we've got to have names for things. Maybe we would have
been better off with a uninomial instead of binomial system, then there
would have been no arguments about generic placements. But boy would we
have had a lot of distinct names to coin (only one "americana" allowed,
only one "canadensis," etc.), if we didn't have that generic name to
modify. Having that single name that everyone uses hopefully doesn't
*eliminate* the idea that there may be diverse viewpoints over the use of
the name.

Since family-level (actually any suprageneric-level) taxa and higher aren't
part of the name, they're irrelevant to the communication part of it. So
we're still back to the point of how do we communicate which "species"
we're talking about, and most people like the security of having a single
name to use, just for the convenience you mention above. Sort of like
knowing whether your female friends have changed their names when they got
married or not--it matters, and presumably most everyone will use the same
name, whatever name the person herself decides to use. And if she gets
divorced, and wants to change her name back, then by golly, we want to know
that too. The species can't tell us their "real" names, so we get
committees to do so.

So you're right that deciding on a single name to use obfuscates the fact
that systematic placement is a hypothesis, and you're right that it is
convenient to decide on a single name to use! Let me know if you can come
up with a better way to do it.

Now I've gotta go home and start my weekend, of which I hope you all have a
good one too.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416