Studies in Oberonia, 9: Lessons from excess names in Oberonia for Orchidaceae systematics, including a revision of the Oberonia Sect. Scytoxiphium

The reasons for excess names in microfloral orchids such as Oberonia Lindl. can be traced to poor scholarship (e.g., failure to review the literature, ignoring expert advice), typological thinking, and erroneous assumption of microendemism. Some extraordinarily poor descriptions, including some from the 21st century, can be termed “taxonomic vandalism”. The outdated reliance on drawings as opposed to z-stacked photographs and scanning electron micrographs poses further problems due to an abundance of demonstrable problems with drawings. The Oberonia sect. Scytoxiphium Schltr. with eight described species is reduced to one species, Oberonia heliophila Rchb.f.; it is illustrated by original drawings, live photographs and scanning electron microscope images. The distribution is extended from Java through Micronesia and Samoa. The species occurs predominantly from 0–500 m, less frequently to 900 m, and possibly to even 1900 m. It flowers throughout the year. Keywords/Palabras clave: Oberonia, Oberonia sect. Scytoxiphium, revision, revisión, synonymies, sinonimias, taxonomic vandalism, vandalismo taxonómico

Situating Copper Crescents

This report considers copper crescent-shaped objects from Ontario, contextualizing them within broader archaeological discussions of the Old Copper Complex. I focus on a small assemblage of antiquarian-collected crescents from the Royal Ontario Museum. A literature review comprises the bulk of this report; crescents recovered from sites located in the center of the Old Copper Complex, in current-day Wisconsin and Michigan, help to situate examples in the antiquarian collection. I discuss crescents in terms of their chronological and geographic breadth, their formal variation, and the different depositional contexts in which they are found. Three examples from the antiquarian collection represent novel forms of copper crescent that are not represented in the accepted typology. Two of these, collected approximately 1,600 km apart from one another, closely resemble stone and copper ulu knives, each with a unique copper handle that once bore a haft. By situating this particular collection within broader discussions of native copper, this report demonstrates the continued importance of thinking through poorly-contextualized archaeological collections while remembering the limitations of rigid, typological thinking.

Typologies, Typifications, and Types

This article positions types at the center of anthropological knowledge production, considering them both from the abstract, analytical perspective of expert typologies and from the tacit, phenomenological perspective of everyday practices of typification. Proposing what an “anthropology of types,” broadly construed and across these two scales, might look like, I examine the histories and uses of types and typological thinking in anthropology, highlighting the empirical, analytical, methodological, ethical, and political questions they have raised. I then describe the phenomenological foundations of typification, how sociocultural and linguistic anthropologists have approached it, and the accompanying challenges related to translation and representation. Finally, I review ethnographies of expert practices of type production, tracing the circuit of typification–typology–type and back again to show how forms of expertise institutionalize lay knowledge in ways that further solidify the misrecognition of types as natural, and examine visual and arts-based interventions that draw attention to these processes.

The Typology of Religious Thought in Muhammadiyah

In the perspective of religious thought, Muhammadiyah is often seen as an ambiguous Islamic mass organization. In matters of worship, for example, Muhammadiyah is very consistent in using the Bayani approach in understanding religious texts, but to determine the beginning of the lunar month associated with a time of worship, Muhammadiyah tends to use the Burhani approach. As a consequence, Muhammadiyah is often considered conservative, but at the same time also considered liberal. This perception does not arise if the methodology of religious thought in Muhammadiyah is comprehensively understood. Therefore, this study assessed the typological thinking in Muhammadiyah. A qualitative method was used for describing the characteristics of an individual, circumstances, symptoms, or certain groups based on the phenomenon of the problem reviewed in a comprehensive and depth way. There are three typologies of religious thought in Muhammadiyah, namely conservative typology, liberal typology, and moderate typology.

Jan Lever: Challenging the Role of Typological Thinking in Reformational Views of Biology

This essay analyzes the view of evolution of Jan Lever (1922–2010), founder of the biology department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and compares his view with those of J.H. Diemer and H. Dooyeweerd. Together with Dooyeweerd, Lever wrote a series of chapters on the species concept in Philosophia Reformata (1948–1950) in which species were defined as constant types. In his book, Creatie en Evolutie (1956), Lever still subscribed to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy but also suggested that it is possible that biological evolution occurred, including that of human beings, and that scientific research can shed light on these processes. Influenced by his idea of individuality structures, Dooyeweerd criticized Lever and suggested that species are constant; that science cannot speak to the topics that Lever discusses. It is argued that Dooyeweerd’s views are influenced by the typological thinking of the time and that reformational thought would benefit from de-emphasizing this aspect of reformational philosophy.

Leukemic Stem Cells Identities: A Philosophical Analysis

What are leukemic stem cells (LSCs)? This is a biological, a semantic, and a philosophical question. Leukemic stem cells raise a number of questions for onco-hematologists in particular when it comes to their clinical relevance. What are their functions in the initiation and in the progression of the disease? How to identify them? How to target them without damaging the non-malignant hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs)? Given that LSCs come from HSCs or progenitors, a semantic question arises: should we rather call them leukemic initiating cells? or leukemic propagating cells? As a philosopher, I approach all these biological and semantic issues with a slightly different perspective. Instead of asking what are LSCs, I will start by asking what kind of property is stemness. In previous work, I performed an analysis of the scientific literature on stem cells (including cancer stem cells) and framed a classification of their possible identities (Laplane, HUP 2016; reviewed in Clevers, Nature 2016):Categorical: stemness is a purely intrinsic property (e.g. of categorical property: the atomic number of chemical elements).Dispositional: stemness is an intrinsic property whose expression depends on extrinsic stimuli from the niche (e.g. of dispositional property: fragility).Relational: stemness is an extrinsic property that depends on a relationship between the cell and its environment; the microenvironment can induce stemness (e.g. of relational property: being the sister of someone).Systemic: stemness is an extrinsic property, maintained and controlled at the level of the system (e.g. of systemic properties: soccer positions that depend on the system of play) Here, I applied this framework to LSCs, in particular in acute myeloid leukemia. This analysis of the identity of stemness matters for onco-hematology because we cannot get rid of categorical, disposition, relational, and systemic properties in the same way. Thus, different therapeutic strategies will have different efficacy depending on the identity of LSCs. For example, targeting LSCs will be much more efficient if they are categorical or dispositional. Targeting the stem cell niche will be more efficient if they are dispositional or relational. But both strategies will lack efficiency if they are systemic. In such cases multi-drug treatments will predictably be more appropriate than targeted therapies. We think about properties as having fixed identities. This is how we study, learn, teach, and investigate biology, and more generally this is how we think. This typological thinking, inherited from Aristotle and Plato, applies well to normal hematopoiesis where most if not all reports describe stemness as a dispositional property. However, the progression of hematological malignancies, from clonal hematopoiesis and pre-malignant stages to chronic and acute leukemia, questions the relevance of this typological thinking in cancer. A first question is whether HSCs, pre-LSCs, and LSCs have the same identity. A second one is whether LSCs of different hematological malignancies and the LSCs in one patient all have the same identity. I will discuss cases of genetic and epigenetic alterations that suggest possible switches in stemness identity and their consequences for therapies. To conclude, I used a classical philosophical method developed in three steps: i- analysis of the scientific literature, ii- production of conceptual distinctions, iii- analysis of their consequences. I suggested the distinction between four stemness identities (categorical, dispositional, relational, systemic). HSCs fits the dispositional identity, suggesting that both LSCs-targeting and niche-targeting therapies could be efficient (provided that we can identity and target them properly). However, the identity of LSCs can differ from that of HSCs. Moreover, in contrast with HSCs that have one unique and stable identity, LSCs can be categorical, dispositional, relational, or systemic, and they can switch from one to another identity following particular genetic and epigenetic insults. This drastically complicates the therapeutic approaches and highlights the need to develop multiple therapies. References Laplane L, Cancer Stem Cells: Philosophy and Therapies. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (MA), 2016. Clevers H, Cancer Therapy: Defining Stemness. Nature 2016; 534(7606): 176-177. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.