Offensive scientific names

Still, this does not answer which names should be considered as offensive. Hitler is a clear example but that’s not the norm. Should all species named after military conquerors be changed? Should we change all those names based on historical figures that had oppressive or bigotted views on other collective even though their contriutions to science or humanities is of incalculable value? Nikola Tesla comes to mind.

And who is to decide what is offensive and what is not? And even more difficult, who is to say when a name is “offensive enough” that needs to be changed? We have to keep in mind that we are talking about scientific names for species, which if we need them to be on thing, that is as unalterable as possible.

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That’s probably my biggest question.
Clearly this isn’t something that can be resolved on iNat but I think it’s a question worth asking

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Are you concerned about how meaningful changing names would actually be? Would you prefer to prioritize actions? Such as free people who are currently enslaved in this world rather than change names about slavery?

That makes sense to us. We respect your purposeful and caring.

We would simply ask if we can do both. We don’t see it as either/or. If there is a fire, by all means address the largest flames; but at the same time don’t neglect simmering embers. People are killed for their names, their associations, their pronouns. So we see evidence that language has violence.

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Species are not immutable, not evolutionarily (y’know, evolution) and not taxonomically (taxa are shuffled around constantly). Hell, the concept of a species is still rigorously debated. Why therefore must species names be immutable? If we rename the hitleri beetle and the worst thing you can foresee happening is that a few other names change too, that seems to me to be a lesser evil than to continue on with a poor beetle weighed down by a hideous name.

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The most important thing to keep in mind: please let alone the species named after me.

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Yes and I think if we actually win in this battle those words won’t have any power over us or anyone, they have it only because people believe they do, some people live by ideals of those words, that’s what I feel needs to be changed. I know that scientific names can’t be changed, even if there’s a typo, so I also think this discussion is in the end pointless as they won’t be changed.
I also have another point on that, I won’t write it to not make it a political discussion. So I’ll just say I think we need to accept our history with its flaws, tell our children those words are sign of the past, past we left in the past, past that is not a sign of us today. I think people don’t do that because they feel they didn’t changed much from the moment someone called a beetle after Hitler.

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Are you feeling confused about where to start? Are you unsure this could work? It does seem daunting, doesn’t it? But we collectively do not need to answer this right now. We don’t need to skip to the end and say, “it’s going to be too hard so let’s give up.”

People often do not want to talk about oppression, we have found, because it feel less unpleasant. Many of us (ourself included) may be implicated in systemic oppression of others. We want ease and not to feel upset. That seems natural. But having these tough conversations—without skipping to the end as a reason for inaction—seems like a place to start.

Can we consider that this is a start?

Whether or not the forum isn’t an ideal place for discussing oppression and systemic violence, we can read on our own, message one another, talk elsewhere, and try to agree that ending oppression is a goal.

Could we ask social scientists if they have already thought about this issue of how to establish criteria, where to start?

Can we start examining who is oppressed? And if words contribute to that?

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We really appreciate your view. We like the idea of explaining context to people, to our children. We could probably abide by this plan, too. Like you, we ache for those who are oppressed. We have the same goals :heart:

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That’s not strictly true. For plants at least (I don’t know about other things) they can be changed. Edit: for a whole genus, I’m not so sure but I think it’s possible

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I can’t remember it right now, but I know a plant named with a typo and it’s still named so like 200 years later, so I’m not sure how easy it is to do if even such obvious cases are not renamed (change of 1 letter!).

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Sorry, but I disagree completely. That’s not the end, but the start. The start of this process should begin with the classification of names that should be changed. It’s not that I’m confused, I’m pretty sure this would work. I don’t even think that would too hard. But it has to be within some well established parameters and, as I said, that’s the first question we need to answer.

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Oh, it’s very easy so long as it’s covered in the Code. Typos and gender mistakes are corrected all the time (in fact, required, by the Code). But that’s probably a different topic :)

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Found it https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/520919-Paeonia-daurica, should’ve been taurica.

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So you would want to know which names we would change before embarking on how to change them?

You want to establish criteria?

We agree with that. We were thinking that in order to establish criteria, we would need a whole discussion about what oppression is, does language contribute to oppression, who is oppressed and by whom, etc.

We don’t have more experience or skill beyond that. Would that help establish criteria?

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Sapir–Whorf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

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This is contrary to the Codes of nomenclature and violates the fundamental principle of the stability of the nomenclature.

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Changing the name of a whole genus? Yes for sure, basically impossible

Doesn’t mean it can’t be discussed though…

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Can we? For thousands of years, the swastika had meanings that had nothing to do with Nazism; but I don’t think that it is at all realistic to think that it can ever be used in those ways again. Especially if we live by Holocaust survivors’ adage to “never forget.”

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I know people still use it in those ways, not realted to nazism, but also know nazism is alive and healthy, so it’s a hard process, I’d start with killing off those nationalistic ideas, they could be transferred in a positive love of your people, not a dominance of Aryan race. Again we can’t discuss it without politics, so I’d just say it’s hard, but if people really wished it, it can become the truth.

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