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Article ID: CBB505474716

Of Elephants and Errors: Naming and Identity in Linnaean Taxonomy (2020)

Witteveen, Joeri (Author)
Müller-Wille, Staffan (Author)

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 42
Issue: 4
Pages: 43

DOI: 10.1007/s40656-020-00340-z

URI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-020-00340-z

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Classification in biology Biology Error Classification 18th century Linnaeus, Carolus

What is it to make an error in the identification of a named taxonomic group? In this article we argue that the conditions for being in error about the identity of taxonomic groups through their names have a history, and that the possibility of committing such errors is contingent on the regime of institutions and conventions governing taxonomy and nomenclature at any given point in time. More specifically, we claim that taxonomists today can be in error about the identity of taxonomic groups in a way that Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), who is routinely cited as the “founder” of modern taxonomy and nomenclature, simply could not be. Starting from a remarkable recent study into Linnaeus’s naming of Elephas maximus that led to the (putative) discovery of a (putative) nomenclatural error by him, we reconsider what it could mean to discover that Linnaeus misidentified a biological taxon in applying his taxon names. Through a further case study in Linnaean botany, we show that his practices of (re)applying names in taxonomic revisions reveal a take on determining “which taxon is which” that is strikingly different from that of contemporary taxonomists. Linnaeus, we argue, adopted a practice-based, hands-on concept of taxa as “nominal spaces” that could continue to represent the same taxon even if all its former members had been reallocated to other taxa.

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