Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and ScienceFinalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science and Technology. “A lively blend of popular scientific history and cultural criticism.”—New York Times Book Review Biologist Carol Kaesuk Yoon explores the historical tension between evolutionary biology and taxonomy. Carl Linnaeus struggled in the eighteenth century to define species in light of their mutability while still relying on intuitive, visual judgments. As taxonomy modernized, it moved into labs, yielding results counterintuitive to humanity’s innate predisposition to order the world. By conceding scientific authority to taxonomists, Yoon argues, we’ve contributed to our own alienation from nature. |
Contents
ONE The Strange Case of the Fish That Wasnt | 3 |
A VISION ILLUMINATED | 115 |
A SCIENCE IS BORN | 189 |
Acknowledgments | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
affinities ancestor ancient animals anthropologists bacteria barnacle bees began biology birds blob botanists brain butterfly Carl Carl Linnaeus cassowary chicken sexers cladists classification creatures Darwin defined definition difficult dinosaurs entirely Ernst Mayr evolution evolutionary ordering evolutionary taxonomists evolutionary tree evolved exactly field figure find finding first fish flowers folk taxonomies genera genus George Gaylord Simpson groups Hennig human umwelt idea intuition kind knew known Linnaean hierarchy Linnaeus Linnaeus’s living things living world look lumpers lungfish mammals Mayr’s molecular biologists molecules Natural History natural order naturalists numerical taxonomy one’s onomy order the living ordering and naming organisms particular perceive PhyloCode plants proteins ratites realized recognize salmon scientific scientists seemed seen sense shared significance similar Sneath Sokal sort species specific splitters strange Systema Naturae Systematics Tasmanian wolf tiny tion understand University vision wild Woese young