Unified taxonomy (1 Viewer)

James Eaton said:

Look what happened the last time the public was asked to vote on something... o

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andyadcock said:

So when we were in Borneo and the call went up for 'F****** Nicobar Pigeon!', that would be out then

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Farnboro John said:

I assume you mean Boaty McBoatface….. 3

John

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DMW said:

James would have called it HMS Ocean-Dweller

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James Eaton said:

Look what happened the last time the public was asked to vote on something... o

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LeNomenclatoriste said:

A wild French guy appeared

English-speaking countries don't have an international commission that manages the use of vernacular names?

and quickly disappear ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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DMW said:

Les Rosbifs don't have a lot of faith in the concept of 40 "immortals" decreeing what words are acceptable. You can take away our freedom but you can't take our Bearded Tits!

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andyadcock said:

I don't think it's a matter, simply of acceptable is it?

There has to be a practical advantage to using the same common name for the same species in a list and a field guide? People have to go to the scientific name now to check which species is being referred to but in a few cases, that's changed too!

Here's an example, what was Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush Garrulax eryhrocephalus is now Malay Laughingthrush Trochalepteron peninsulae.

Any search on HBW for Garrulax eryhrocephalus, returns Trochalopteron erythrocephalum Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush which is a different species, outside the range of what I was looking for.

You have to be a detective it seems if you let your old reports get too dated!

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DMW said:

I was referring to the Academie Francaise, which has a committee of 40 individuals (called the Immortals, presumably because they are exceedingly old and out of touch with the real world) entrusted with maintaining the purity of the French language and preventing incursions by disgusting Anglo-Saxonisms like "le weekend" or "le Quarter-pounder with Cheese".

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andyadcock said:

This alone, has been the topic of seemingly partizan debate very recently, I thought science was supposed to be dispassionate? With the trend for eponymous naming having fallen by the wayside, perhaps this penchant for waxing lyrical in common names should be dropped too?

Northern Harrier v Hen Harrier or Common Moorhen v Common Gallinule aren't valid comparisons as many consider them seperate species. Better might be Boreal v Tengmalm's Owl or Lapland Bunting v Lapland Longspur and of course Loon v Diver.

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Mysticete said:

I can't imagine anything more likely to result in hilarity than asking the public to vote on common names. There have been cases in the last year of a handful of individuals manipulating online voting polls and ratings to pull pranks or force obnoxious agenda's on the public, even in things comparably obscure. This would seem like a great way of getting "Poopy Buttface" or "Hitler's Antshrike" as common names...

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njlarsen said:

Scientists are human beings. Pride has caused some very ugly scenes among scientists in the past ....

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Taphrospilus said:

One was e.g. Richard Meinertzhagen. As well I assume Coenraad Jacob Temminck was not amused what Pauline Rifer de Courcelles have done (the story is described in MADAME KNIP, NÉE PAULINE DE COURCELLES, ET SON OEUVRE ORNITHOLOGIQUE if I rember correctly).

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GMK said:

Was or wasn't Meinertzhagen a scientist? He wasn't a trained one. Was he engaged in scientific endeavour? Yes. If you pull apart the bird work to reveal all of the lies and theft, there's still some science left at the core, more than just Montifringilla theresae as a perfectly valid species that RM described. But, on top of that, there's also a considerable body of work on Mallophaga in tandem with his "companion" Theresa Clay, which to my knowledge generally stacks up as honest and solid (and is still used by those working on avian lice).

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