Connections, transitions – my spouse points out that I often omit them.
As I said in a different context, predation if I remember correctly, I think we need to learn to see the world as it is, with good and bad parts, tragic, sometimes horrifying. Some things are offensive. If they aren’t actually aimed at us, intended to be offensive, we can be strong enough to survive them, even survive unharmed. (By the way, I do know from experience that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” is a lie.)
Of course, there are a lot of offensive things in the world and reducing the number is probably a good idea. Though I’ll still grumble – it’s change, you know. However, this “Oh, no, we need to change scientific names (despite the rules that prevent changes for the good reason that we need stability)!” just feels performative, to me. How many people actually know or care about scientific names? And the names that you have to teach me about so I know I should be offended by them – just how offensive are those obscure names, really? Maybe you can feel good about making such changes, but without the trouble of actually helping anyone overcome the obstacles our society puts in the way – how good is that, really? Not very, I’d say. If you want to help, do the work – teach, mentor, be active politically, write, be kind and and fair and encouraging to those around you. Trying to change a scientific name, even it commemorates the a despicable person like the orange being who as recently tried to end the U.S.'s constitutional democracy and may yet succeed, does an amount of good that approximates zero.
And no, scientific names don’t change all the time. They’re surprisingly stable and international.
Are people complaining about offensive scientific names? I know that many common names have been changed, but not many scientific names, if any. There definitely are species epithets with controversial people’s names, i.e. hitleri. However, I don’t know how common these species are and how much they are studied, although most species that are heavily studied do not have eponymous scientific names that don’t refer to the discoverer. I think a much larger deal would be made if Acer rubrum was split into Acer rubrum, Acer obamii, and Acer donaldtrumpi.
Finally, is Bidens possibly offensive to some Americans now?
This is my opinion, and I mean no offense towards political beliefs.
I would say that they are different to textbooks in that a textbook is a record of history written after the event, whereas scientific names are actual pieces of preserved history. Hitler is obviously an offensive character: my home city was bombed flat on his orders, more intensively than most, so perhaps I should be offended by a beetle bearing his name. In fact I simply find it really interesting!
Another (minor) point worth noting is that not all names named after famous people are endorsements of them: at least one of the donaldtrumpi epithets is intended as a satirical comment. (something about the creature sticking its head in the sand being like his attitude to the climate crisis). I don’t really like the idea of using scientific names for political comment tbh, but worth pointing out.
Probably a lot more than before platforms like iNaturalist became so popular!
(Not disagreeing with your other thoughts BTW…)
Thank you all for keeping the discussion on-topic and civil, and for using “political” examples without turning the discussion “political.” (Which is when moderators start getting heartburn…) Keep it up!
Agreed. I am much more concerned with names going forward than I am with names already settled. I don’t really care enough to rename hitleri or donaldtrupi, but I would be interested in new rules going forward to prevent political comment or honoring people with unethical views. I think the easiest way to do this is to no longer allow honorifics (or un-honorifics as with your donaldtrupi example) of any kind for new species, regardless of how “good” or “bad” the person might be. This avoids the “who’s ethics do we decide by?” debate.
Just because you find it interesting doesn’t mean that people who find it offensive have an invalid viewpoint. (Nor am I saying your viewpoint is invalid). Similarly, just because I don’t personally have an interest in renaming hitleri doesn’t mean that people who do want it renamed are without reason. This ties into my last point:
The “if you don’t like it you can leave” argument is a very dangerous ideology. Attitudes like this are exactly why STEM fields struggle with drawing in more representative and diverse personnel.
I think it would be neat if we could change things so everybody was happy with everything and nobody took offense to anything. But would that ever happen? Never. It’s just not a possible outcome. There will always be division in all fields and this one is no different. Such is life.
I think the article was an open ended hypothetical question whether there should be consideration to changing the code to allow these changes. For what it’s worth I’d never even heard of Hibbert before reading the article and Hibbertia species are very common in my area and I look up the etymology of every plant I see. I guess I probably did look up the etymology of Hibbertia at some point in the past and just saw that it was named after some fellow called Hibbert and left it at that.
I’m still kinda salty about the whole mess of African Acacia being reclassified. It could be seen as a sign of the unequal relationship Africa has with the rest of the world.
Salty (I’ll have to google that (urban dictionary, angry and bitter - me too!
But working thru IDing Unknowns in Africa, I have often had to explain, yes acacia, but renamed for and by Australians. PS following iNat guidelines - be kind and presume good intentions - my actual comment is ‘renamed’ without the salt.
Rubbing salt in the wound is that Cape Town has such a huge problem with invasive Australian Acacia that we were working on biocontrol back when I was a botany student. Very satisfying to see that working as intended when I hike!
Unfortunately, judging from the many comments above, there is still much misinformation about Acacia. The formerly worldwide genus was found to be separate units using DNA analysis. Thus the American species has to be fitted in a new genus anyway. The majority of the African species has to be put in a new (resurrected genus anyway). The remaining few species was weighted up with over a thousand Australian, Indonesian, Malaysian and even a Madagascar (part of Africa) species.
Hey all, we can move the Acacia discussion to a separate topic if you would like, but please keep comments here on the original topic of offensive scientific names.
In India the swastika is a common everyday symbol and has nothing to do with Nazism, Indian’s have used it before Nazis and we continue to use it now. Many westerners are shocked by the widespread use of this symbol, all over India. There are differences in how is is drawn, shown, or the the context but that is not always obvious.
I echo what @johndeitsch says, some names must reflect common human historical justice and are too despicable to use.
(urban dictionary, angry and bitter - me too!