"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
news
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They even put "the 'father of taxonomy' title" between single quotes to
show it should not be taken literally!
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Quite; to show that he was not literally its daddy.
Colin

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There is a saying "succes has many fathers"
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...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.

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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.
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

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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,

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included in "survey", isn't it?
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and standardised many of the alternative names.

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The real standardization came only later and some of Linnaeus' choices
have
been cursed as idiotic by generations of botanists.
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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

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Actually you might elaborate on what you did mean by:
Give Linnaeus his due - despite the flaws, his system has served
us pretty well and should not be rudely dismissed.

It is still unclear what system you meant and how it has proved useful?
PvR

Well, OK - I'll have a shot at it, but I'm a bit pushed for time.
Prior to Linnaeus, there was little if any universally accepted system for
the naming of organisms. Although some people used binomials, long
polynomials were still common.
If pressed, I would nominate his sexual system, even though this was very
artificial and not entirely successful.
This taxonomy was pretty soon abandoned by later botanists, but his system
of naming taxa persisted, as it was effective way to communicate about
plants - most educated people then spoke latin, and the binomens (even if,
as you say, many of them were "idiotic") did at least have a precise meaning
(you might disagree with that).
Also, it was simple. Any botanist or naturalist could use the system to
classify and identify plants that he/she had never encountered before, and
this was what most people wanted, and still want. So it was used, and
remained in use. To quote from the Linnaean Society (the London one):
"In his publications, Linnaeus provided a concise, usable survey of all the
world's plants and animals as then known, about 7,700 species of plants and
4,400 species of animals. These works helped to establish and standardize
the consistent binomial nomenclature for species which he introduced on a
world scale for plants in 1753, and for animals in 1758, and which is used
today. His Species Plantarum 10th edition, volume 1(1758), have accordingly
been accepted by international agreement as the official starting points for
botanical and zoological nomenclature. Scientific names published before
then have no validity unless adopted by Linnaeus or by later authors. This
confers a high scientific importance on the specimens used by Linnaeus for
their preparation, many of which are in his personal collections now
treasured by the Linnean Society". and:
"The general adoption by botanists and zoologists of this consistent
two-word nomenclature for species during the second-half of the 18th century
came about because Linnaeus introduced it in comprehensive works which
naturalists soon found indispensable"

Yes, I know that quotes are a bit of a cop-out, but I really do have to
leave this - at least pro tem, and I doubt that I could improve on what they
have to say.

Colin