scholarly journals Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny

2004 ◽  
Vol 359 (1444) ◽  
pp. 571-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin D. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Information Age ◽  
Biological Research ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Intellectual Content ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World

Revisionary taxonomy is frequently dismissed as merely descriptive, which belies its strong intellectual content and hypothesis–driven nature. Funding for taxonomy is inadequate and largely diverted to studies of phylogeny that neither improve classifications nor nomenclature. Phylogenetic classifications are optimal for storing and predicting information, but phylogeny divorced from taxonomy is ephemeral and erodes the accuracy and information content of the language of biology. Taxonomic revisions and monographs are efficient, high–throughput species hypothesis–testing devices that are ideal for the World Wide Web. Taxonomic knowledge remains essential to credible biological research and is made urgent by the biodiversity crisis. Theoretical and technological advances and threats of mass species extinctions indicate that this is the time for a renaissance in taxonomy. Clarity of vision and courage of purpose are needed from individual taxonomists and natural history museums to bring about this evolution of taxonomy into the information age.

scholarly journals NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
Dimítri De Araújo Costa ◽  
Nuno Gomes ◽  
Harold Cantallo ◽  
Carlos Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Type Specimens ◽  
Local Fauna ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Object Of Study

Society in general is distant from scientific culture, it is required to bring scientific knowledge closer to the population. In this context, an effective and attractive way for scientific dissemination is the establishment of natural history museums, which are institutions of knowledge, displaying the past. Natural history museums have the natural world as their object of study; and their collections may contain the most diverse types of materials (local and/or from various parts of the world), such as zoological, botanical, geological, archaeological, among others. Scientific collections are the largest and most important source of authoritative biodiversity data, contributing to studies of biodiversity composition, evolutionary (morphological and genetic), biogeographical, phenological, as well as geological. The materials present in these collections may serve for temporal comparison, being useful to produce predictive models. Likewise, they have a fundamental role in safeguarding type specimens, i.e. the first organisms identified to describe and name a new species. In addition, there is the component available to visitors in general, in order to raise public awareness on the preservation of the local fauna and flora and of other places in the world. In this way, the museums serve both the academic-scientific public and visitors who come to these sites for recreational purposes. It is intended to promote, in Vila Nova de Cerveira, the Natural History Museum of the Iberian Peninsula - NatMIP (“Museu de História Natural da Península Ibérica”), which intends to collect materials for scientific purposes, mainly Iberian.

Viewing the Draft BioCode as a protistologist and museum employee

Bionomina ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Erna AESCHT
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Type Specimen ◽  
Type Material ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Stability Concept

The initiative resulting in a revived Draft BioCode (DBC) is highly welcomed, to a lesser extent the acontextual, ahistorical and disembodied presentation of the latter. Examples from ciliatology show that we not only face a taxonomic gap combined with a biodiversity crisis but also a “nomenclature awareness” gap. Because of many discrepancies between announced and actually deposited type material in protistology, a four-eyes principle is suggested, viz. registration of type specimen(s) should be performed or countersigned by the curator(s) of the relevant institution(s), preferably natural history museums. Pseudonomenclature may be characterized by a loose series of articles covering more or less ranks viewed from a top-down perspective, a misleading, discordant terminology (e.g. concerning diagnosis, circumscription, protologue, sorts of types) and a stability concept flawed by the absence of clear guidelines concerning “prevailing usage” or “established custom”. Bionomenclature-in-the-making resulting in a de facto unified BioCode would be enhanced by a critical mass of taxonomists defending a clear coherent plan favouring a bottom-up approach, i.e., most important are concrete specimens including their (micro)habitats, a fine-tuned, consistent terminology, and stringent, automatic rules.

Basics of the external communication of State Natural History Museum NAS of Ukraine

2018 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Arkhipova Kh. ◽  
Danylyuk K.
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
External Communication ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World

The main tendencies of development of communication strategies of the leading natural history museums of the world are considered. Based on the Strategy for the Development of State Natural History Museum NAS of Ukraine, the main goals, tasks and channels of communication with the main segments of the audience of the museum are developed.

Museums of natural history—do we need their collections in the time of molecular biology?

1993 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-328
Author(s):  
Sven Mathiasson
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
The World

All over the world natural history museums act as storehouses. Billions of creatures are preserved. Most museum visitors never see these collections; they only meet the limited specimens presented in public exhibitions. Most people seem to know little about the value of these collections and how they are used. This article presents some aspects of natural history collections and their value in scientific and other contexts.

Foole’s Gold

Pyrite ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Rickard
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Time Limits ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Academic Courses ◽  
The Subject

This classic opening gambit at the stereotypical drinks party always throws me. I have been a professor at a university for most of my life, so the easiest answer is that I teach. This is true, but it disguises the reality that much of my waking time has been concerned with research. If I admit this, then it becomes necessary to explain what I actually research. One of my pet subjects is pyrite. But if I let on that I research pyrite, my interlocutors look at me as though I am one of those wonderful beings who haunt the bowels of natural history museums as world experts on a rare species of toad. As with toads, most people in the world have heard of pyrite. They know it is a mineral or stone, and most know that it is also called fool’s gold, a familiar theme of moral tales and nursery stories. So the idea of someone studying pyrite is not altogether the stuff of IgNobel prizes. Within the time limits imposed by decent conversation I cannot explain that pyrite is the mineral that made the modern world. I cannot refer them to a book about it since there has not been one published about pyrite since 1725. This book is an attempt to rectify the situation. In it I contend that pyrite has had a disproportionate and hitherto unrecognized influence on developing the world as we know it today. This influence extends from human evolution and culture, through science and industry, to ancient, modern, and future Earth environments and the origins and evolution of early life on the planet. The book is aimed at making the subject accessible to the general reader. It is not a scientific monograph, since these handle only the science and are really directed at the converted: the high priests of the cathedral of science and technology and their aspirant novices. It is also not aimed at being a textbook in the conventional sense: textbooks are generally aimed at specific academic courses and ultimately pave the way for the students to understand the monographs.

An opalized oak from Clover Creek, Lincoln County, Idaho c.1895

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-368
Author(s):  
Mike Viney ◽  
Dagmar Dietrich ◽  
Jim Mills
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Taxonomic Affinity ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Lincoln County ◽  
The World

Abstract According to mineralogical literature, some of the finest opalized wood in the world was discovered in Idaho c.1895, originating in a unique deposit along Clover Creek in Lincoln County (now Gooding County). The American mineral dealer Dr A. E. Foote acquired and processed the bulk of the discovery into specimens that were advertised between 1896 and 1904. Over a period of four years, we have identified sixteen natural history museums in Europe, North America, and Australia in possession of Clover Creek opalized oak today. Many museum acquisitions and the fossil’s taxonomic affinity, Quercinium pliocaenicum, resulted from collective networking between mineral dealers, private collectors and scientists – evidence of a common interest among a diversity of people – contributing the best specimens for museums of natural history.

scholarly journals ‘Visual Histories’ Science Visualization in Nineteenth-Century Natural History Museums

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-421
Author(s):  
Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
History Museum ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The World ◽  
Shed Light

This article attempts to shed light on the complex interdependencies between science, art and popular visual culture in the context of nineteenth-century natural history museums. Natural history museums are still underestimated agents for (artistic) scientific visualizations. Built as ‘visual narrators’ they became a form of mass media that conveyed scientific knowledge to diverse audiences. This article is a first attempt to bring order into the broad field of science visualization and to describe its significance for the popularization of the natural sciences. The visual outreach of museums such as the Natural History Museum Vienna went far beyond their circle of visitors. By creating and presenting first rank artistic imaginaries, they inspired highly circulated teaching devices such as school wall charts, textbooks or models, thus influencing our collective visual memory. These images subconsciously shaped the way we perceive the world as it is and as it could have been. 

scholarly journals Den naturhistoriske samling og forskningen

1970 ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Niels P. Kristensen
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Natural History Museums ◽  
Natural Habitats ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Natural History Collections ◽  
Biological Systematics ◽  
Phylogenetic Affinities

Natural history collections and research Among the research activities linked to natural history collections, biological systematics stands out for the topicality conferred upon it by growing concern over the biodiversity crisis. Systematic biologists, most of whom work in natural history museums, are faced with the task of naming and describing/redescribing millions of undescribed or poorly described organisms from rapidly dwindling natural habitats, and of classifying the known organisms according to their phylogenetic affinities, so that all kinds of biological information on all kinds of organisms may be pieced together into coherent patterns. 

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