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Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

crimepaysbutbotanydoesnt.com

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Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#131

Post by dahart »

amiga386 wrote: post #94
chabska wrote: post #57

They spent a whole section glazing the Linnaeus system like it's a perfect thing, but as someone who has delved into taxonomy a lot (due to playing Metazooa and Metaflora), there are quite a few glaring issues with it. 1. political tussle. australian botanists managed to hijack the "acacia" name from the original African Acacia, to the totally unrelated australian plants that were also called acacia. I noticed that j…

I don't think it's a real problem. It's a way that one group of humans agreed to label things, and that way is the currently dominant way. Even the agreed rules (whoever publishes first gets dibs on the name) are just an incentive for academics to publish. If there were another labelling system, it would have the same problems and would only serve to split the humans into multiple ways of doing the same thing. But, u…

> If there were another labelling system, it would have the same problems and would only serve to split the humans into multiple ways of doing the same thing.

If that were true, then you’re saying Linnaeus has the same problems as before it, and it only split people up? Maybe we should go back to the previous names? Of course the system could be improved and solve some problems, the relevant questions aren’t whether it’s possible, they’re about goals, scale, and agreement.

Feynman’s quote is cute but doesn’t seem completely relevant to a hierarchical taxonomic naming system that in fact does tell you something about what a bird is from the name, no?

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#132

Post by myvoiceismypass »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #4

Watch this guy's YT channel - have been for years now. I think what originally caught my attention on his channel was a video specifically about the flora around run-down Oakland urban-industrial areas.

His video trip to Berkeley Bowl West was so fucking funny and spot on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUFQouwqbe8

(I love BB)

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#133

Post by apercu »

I just heard about a rare one in Wisconsin - someone I know knows someone that has land that includes original prairie and there is an almost extinct plant on that property. The local University has been studying the land for years, but a grad student stole seeds from this plant multiple years in a row and sold them - the landowner shut down access to the University, ending a 20 year study by a tenured prof.

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#135

Post by forshaper »

giov4 wrote: post #46

I think nature and plants always interested me since I was a kid. For example I loved to plant from seeds, see them grow, learn and explore a bit with curiosity my mum or aunt plants and when being out in the forest, but not a lot more than that. Later, while growing up, I noticed my brain noticing plants or tree details, auto mapping them to possible genre, trying to find out, trying to memorize... but not always vo…

It seems to be the case for me, though I remember it being present as a child. It's like it went away in adolescence and came back later. Same goes for rocks, weather (beyond basic planning), and so on.

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#136

Post by Schlagbohrer »

Brybry wrote: post #34
Schlagbohrer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His interview with the old railworker and grease-pen graffiti artist Colossus of Roads was fascinating. Unfortunately I cant find it on youtube anymore with a quick search, otherwise I'd put the link here.

Is this it? https://youtu.be/-Eo4WuhpiJg?t=1085

Yes

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#137

Post by dfltr »

jojocool0501 wrote: post #80

My favorite Youtube channel. Please watch the latest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDVcfSYcxc0 . It's an interview with an old botanist, who shares his wisdom and philosophy, remains engaged after decades of witnessing first hand America's nature getting destroyed. 2 main points: - destroyed old-growth forests, grassland, remnant prairies takes millennia to be back to what they were, not decades. Insects and other…

His instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/crime_pays_but_botany_doesnt) is up there with Chuck Tingle in terms of subscribing to little bits of life-affirming joy in a difficult world.

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#138

Post by arjie »

Haha, the Latin (or pseudo-Latin, I suppose) I like for the fact that it’s sufficiently alien to not introduce terminology confusion like “strawberries aren’t berries and pineapple is a berry” or whatever that is a colloquial language confusion.

Science does have a lot of weird terminology that can be improved, though. One example is the thing I’ve always known since a child as the Fallopian Tube. At some point in my twenties, I learned Eileter - egg carrier - and the subsequent term oviduct. I’m a huge fan of Germanic compound words since destructuring them gives you information on the object - the ovum tube. There is a commonality in terminology between different parts of the body and this concordance aids memory and recall.

A Fallopian Tube on the other hand implies some kind of membership of the group of Fallopes and has no function description.

Re: Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't

#139

Post by chabska »

amiga386 wrote: post #94
chabska wrote: post #57

They spent a whole section glazing the Linnaeus system like it's a perfect thing, but as someone who has delved into taxonomy a lot (due to playing Metazooa and Metaflora), there are quite a few glaring issues with it. 1. political tussle. australian botanists managed to hijack the "acacia" name from the original African Acacia, to the totally unrelated australian plants that were also called acacia. I noticed that j…

I don't think it's a real problem. It's a way that one group of humans agreed to label things, and that way is the currently dominant way. Even the agreed rules (whoever publishes first gets dibs on the name) are just an incentive for academics to publish. If there were another labelling system, it would have the same problems and would only serve to split the humans into multiple ways of doing the same thing. But, u…

I didn't mean a literal tree that has leaves and bark. I meant the tree structure that you get when you trace the ancestry of all organisms. A tree coordinate system would assign a number to every node, so instead of saying Tectona grandis, you say 2.44.32.543.45.33 . If that looks like IP address to you, yes, an IP address is actually a tree coordinate system.
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