Splitters and Lumpers: why planet Earth needs taxonomists

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — Among biological scientists, they are the true nomenklatura, a small and far-flung tribe dedicated to the coherent naming of all living things, past and present.

Gathered in Paris last week, the world's leading taxonomists feted the brilliant and vainglorious Swedish naturalist who, 250 years ago, single-handedly created the system of classification they still use.

But beneath the festive air the proceedings were troubled, on at least two counts.

Carl Linnaeus -- who called the sample-collecting students he dispatched across the globe in the 18th century his "apostles" -- was a creationist born a century before Charles Darwin.

Today many biologists are clamouring for a new approach to cataloging the planet's flora and fauna that goes...