This week, the group that sets the rules for naming plant species will vote on whether to rename dozens of organisms whose scientific designations contain a racial slur, as well as to reconsider other offensive names, such as those that recognize colonialists or people who advocated for slavery.
The votes at the International Botanical Congress in Madrid mark the first time that taxonomists have officially considered rule changes to deal with species names that many people find offensive.
Advocates of the proposals argue that, as wider society addresses the veneration of people responsible for historical injustices, so should science. But some in the world of taxonomy worry that changing names en masse could sow confusion in the scientific literature, as well as create a ‘slippery slope’ that could threaten any species name recognizing a person.
“It’s very unfortunate that many of these names are offensive,” says Alina Freire-Fierro, a botanist at the Technical University of Cotopaxi in Latacunga, Ecuador. “To change the names that have already been published would cause so much confusion.”
Advocates of the changes point out that species names and taxonomy rules are constantly in flux — this week’s meeting will consider hundreds of proposals to alter rules for plant names. Eliminating especially egregious names is a drop in the ocean compared with the changes that already occur when, for instance, a genetic analysis splits a single species into multiple species or reveals new relationships between species, say scientists supporting the measures.
“It would be great to have some mechanism for weeding out some of the most offensive names,” adds Lennard Gillman, a retired evolutionary biogeographer and independent consultant in Auckland, New Zealand.
Every six to seven years, taxonomists meet at a conference called the International Botanical Congress to consider changes to the rules for naming plants, as well as fungi and algae (a separate group is responsible for animal names). Later this week, members of the Nomenclature Section will vote on two proposals that deal with culturally sensitive names.
New plant species are typically named by the scientists who discover them, with a key requirement that a description appears in scientific literature. During the nineteenth and even well into the twentieth centuries, the mostly European scientists formally naming species found in the non-Western world often recognized colonial rulers, such as the politician Cecil Rhodes, and patrons.
