Linnaeus Knew What's In A Name
Attention Homo sapiens: Carl Linnaeus's book Systema Naturae, in which he introduced the modern system of taxonomic nomenclature, is on display November 6 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History and November 8th through 10th at the New York Botanical Garden. Steve Mirsky reports. For more info, go to www.hmnh.harvard.edu and www.nybg.org
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Stephen Jay Gould said that every species designation represents a theory about that organism. The species assignment is more than a mere naming; it is a classification of the organism within the context of all the other creeping, crawling, clinging and cavorting life on earth. So once a scientist names the species, the way that organism fits into the web of life is also announced. Close relatives are in the same genus. More distant ones are in the same class, and so on.
Almost 300 years ago, before there even was a good theory of evolution, Carl Linnaeus invented the modern species classification system. And this week, an event takes place that is even rarer than the discovery of a new species. Linnaeus’s own, annotated copy of his book Systema Naturae will be on public display—November 6th at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and November 8th through 10th at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The book was published in 1735 and introduced the genus-species system that is still in use by we Homo sapiens.
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