"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
...
P van Rijckevorsel writes
I am quite dubious if the large majority of people believe that
Linnaeus
is the beginning of modern taxonomy. You are the first one I meet ;-)

Apart from Paul Hebert, of course?
Colin


No doubt one could accuse the Linnaean Society of bias, but,

http://www.linnean.org/html/history/..._biography.htm

+ + +
Actually this is quite accurate.
They even put "the 'father of taxonomy' title" between single quotes to
show
it should not be taken literally!

Quite; to show that he was not literally its daddy.
Colin
+ + +

and, they're not the only ones,

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Li...xonomy&num=100

and some of those links are university sites
======

...modern taxonomy is assumed to start with Caesalpinus (1519-1603) or
John Ray

I could be tempted to go with the last two, but I'll stick with the majority
;-) and my old friend Linnaeus.

(1628-1705). Binary combinations on a largish scale were first used by de
Tournefort (1656-1708).

I was looking at one of Tournefort's books today, and in this he was
using binomials, but not necessarily as specific names. (For example, he
has 14 "species" of Malva rosea, most, if not all, would now be ranked
as cultivars of forms. And 8 of Ketmia indica.)

He wasn't the only one. Some of the herbalists were using binomials before
that
Colin


+ + +
=======
I doubt that you could easily find anybody who knows what the system of
Linnaeus is, it has fallen in disuse so long ago that only students of
history are even vaguely familiar with it.

Didn't you see d.buebly's comments above? Sounds as if he is a student.
Colin

Even when published it was
worthless, from a scientific perspective.


+ + +
The importance of Linneaus lies in the fact that he published surveys of
plants which were complete (ie all known plants) and to file these in an
accessible manner he used the Sexual System
PvR

And got well castigated for it. To quote but one - the Bishop of Carlisle:
"A literal translation of the first principles of Linnaean botany is enough
to shock female modesty. It is possible that many virtuous students might
not be able to make out the similitude of Clitoria"
Interesting that the bishop *could*. I reckon it is almost worth giving
Linnaeus pride of place for that alone.
I do agree with your last paragraph :-0, but he also made the study of
plants more accessible by publishing short descriptions of plant species,
and standardised many of the alternative names.

However, when I innocently offered up the report on Hebert's paper, I didn't
expect to stir up so much reaction. It *has* been fun, but perhaps enough is
enough?
Colin