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Hail Linnaeus

Hail Linnaeus

1    “No science in the world is more    it right first time, of course, and what
 elevated, more necessary and looked like one species may rightly
 more useful than economics.” That was later be seen as two. But a suspiciously
 the view of Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish large number of the new species have
 naturalist, born three centuries ago, turned up in the limited group of big,
 who is better remembered for devising showy animals known somewhat
 the system used to this day to classify disparagingly as “charismatic
 living organisms. megafauna” – in other words the
2    Linnaeus sought to reveal what he species that the public, as opposed to
 saw as the divine order of the natural the experts, care about.
 world so that it might be exploited for6    One reason for this taxonomic
 human benefit. He lived at a time when inflation is that the idea of a species
 exploration and trade were bringing becoming extinct is easy to grasp, and
 new specimens to the attention of thus easy to make laws about.
 European scientists. Those specimens, Subspecies just do not carry as much
 particularly the plants, were political clout. The other is that
 scrutinised as potential crops. At the upgrading simultaneously increases
 turn of the 17th century there was no the number of rare species (by
 sense of how creatures were related to fragmenting populations) and
 each other; descriptions and augments the biodiversity of a piece of
 classifications were unsystematic. habitat and thus its claim for
 Linnaeus gave life to an organising protection.
 hierarchy with kingdoms at the top and7    In the short term, this strategy
 species at the bottom. helps conservationists by intensifying
3    The system he created has proved the perceived threat of extinction. In
 both robust and flexible. It survived the long term, as every economist
 the rise of evolution. It also survived knows, inflation brings devaluation.
 the discovery of whole categories of Rarity is not merely determined by the
 organism, such as bacteria, that the number of individuals in a species, it is
 Swede never suspected existed. But, also about how unusual that species is.
 rather as John Maynard Keynes If there are only two species of
 observed that “there is no subtler, no elephant, African and Indian, losing
 surer means of overturning the one matters a lot. Subdivide the
 existing basis of society than to African population, as some
 debauch the currency”, so Linnaeus's taxonomists propose, and perceptions
 system is being subtly debauched by of scarcity may shift.
 over-eager taxonomists, trying to help8    The trouble is that the idea of what
 conservation. defines a species is a lot more slippery
  than you might think. Since it is
 Go forth and multiply changes in DNA that cause species to
4    As new areas are explored, the number evolve apart, looking at DNA should be
 of species naturally increases. For a good way to divide the natural world.
  However, it depends which bit of DNA
  you look at. The standard technique
  says, for example, that polar bears are
  just brown bears that happen to be
  white. This is not good news for those
  relying on the Endangered Species Act.
  For a certain sort of Colorado rodent
  (with, alas, a nose for prime riverfront
  real estate) the question of whether it
  is “Preble’s meadow jumping mouse”
  or a boring old meadow jumping
  mouse may be a matter of life or death:
  local property developers are on the
  death side. The Bahamas switched
  overnight from protecting their
  raccoons to setting up programmes to
 Carl Linnaeus eradicate them when a look at the
  genetic evidence showed the animals
 example, the number of species of were common Northern raccoons, not
 monkey, ape and lemur gradually a separate species.
 increased until the mid-1960s, when it9    The 21st-century answer to this
 levelled off. In the mid-1980s, 18th-century riddle is that a species is
 however, it started rising again. Today what a taxonomist says it is. Evolution
 there are twice as many primate often fails to produce the clear
 species as there were then. That is not divisions that human thought in
 because a new wave of primatologists general, and the law in particular,
 has emerged, pith-helmeted, from the prefers to work with. It therefore
 jungle with hitherto unknown behoves taxonomists to be honest. If
 specimens. It is because a lot of they debase their currency, it will
 established subspecies have been ultimately become valueless. Linnaeus
 reclassified as species. the economist would have known that
5    Perhaps “reclassified” is not quite instinctively. •
 the right word. “Rebranded” might be 
 closer. Taxonomists do not always get