[Taxacom] Why stability?

[Stephen Thorpe]

As I'm sure Rod Page would agree (or at least I think he would!), one of the main issues here is the interpretation of binomials for species. It retrospect, species names may have better been uninomial. The fact that the next level up (genus) is part of the species name causes all sorts of problems. Identifiers should be arbitrary (but euphonious and mnemonic). If not, instability results from disagreements over the implied meanings. I think I have heard Rod suggest that we should stick with original combinations! That would solve the particular problem, but nobody else is going to go with that idea! Replacing names with LSIDs doesn't work (neither euphonious nor mnemonic), but changing names in response to competing more or less supported phylogenetic hypotheses just leads to runaway instability. There is no solution. All we can do is to muddle on ...

Stephen

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On Tue, 28/4/15, Nico Franz <nico.franz at asu.edu> wrote:

 Subject: [Taxacom] Why stability?
 To: "TAXACOM" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Tuesday, 28 April, 2015, 12:47 PM
 
 http://taxonbytes.org/thoughts-why-stability-in-nomenclature-and-at-what-cost/
 
    I'd be interested in knowing if any
 scholarly works (I cite Atran)
 support this. And other comments.
 
 Cheers, Nico
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