Quotes About Taxonomy

Each way of organizing has strengths and weaknesses. Taxonomy affords a view from the top, facets help us muddle through the middle, and tags build bridges at the bottom.

There are maybe 9,000 bird species living today, which is not quite double the number of mammal species.

With clear definitions and a taxonomy that illustrates their relationships, the Inventure Cycle defines the pathway from inspiration to implementation. This framework captures the skills, attitudes, and actions that are necessary to foster innovation and to bring breakthrough ideas to the world.

Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.

It was implicitly supposed that every living thing was distinctively plant or animal; that there were real and profound differences between the two, if only they could be seized.

It is interesting to wonder whether taxonomists of the future may regret the way our generation messed around with genomes.

If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception.

The science of systematics has long been affected by profound philosophical preconceptions, which have been all the more influential for being usually covert, even subconscious.

efficiently the system worked. A courthouse is a factory, sorting violence into a taxonomy of crimes, processing

There are two kinds of observers in science: splitters and lumpers. I've never been much of a splitter; in my heart of hearts, I'm a lumper.) In

God created, Linnaeus ordered.

There are 2, 500 kinds of sponges, all of them consist largely of holes.

I love finding - or inventing - ways to categorize people.

The best opinion now is, that there are multitudinous forms which are not sufficiently differentiated to be distinctively either plant or animal, while, as respects ordinary plants and animals, the difficulty of laying down a definition has become far greater than ever before.

molecular phylogenetics.

HYDRA, n. A kind of animal that the ancients catalogued under many heads.

from Beatrix in this case, who quoted the esteemed Swedish botanical taxonomist Carl Linnaeus on how to distinguish minerals from plants, and plants from animals: "Stones grow. Plants grow and live. Animals grow, live, and feel

The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

Yet the real meaning of the word human is 'an animal belonging to the genus Homo', and there used to be many other species of this genus besides Homo sapiens.

Stone is a primal matter, inhuman in its duration. Yet despite its incalculable temporality, the lithic is not some vast and alien outside. A limit-breaching intimacy persistently unfolds. Hurl a rock and you'll shatter an ontology, leave taxonomy in glistening shards.

People want to classify and say, 'OK, this is a gangster film.' 'This is a Western.' 'This is a... ' You know? It's easy to classify and it makes people feel comfortable, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter.

It seems we will continue to have problems with this classification and it may be because it comes under the heading of creation rather than preservation.

The names of the plants ought to be stable [certa], consequently they should be given to stable genera.

Biogeography typically trumps taxonomy and anticipates molecular phylogeny