the need for more woke dinosaur naming

[erik simpson]

Do we really need to apologize for the bad thoughts of our predecessors?
The ICZN apparently will be implored to take action. At least, "The
ICZN is firmly against going back and renaming species whose names might
now be considered offensive, and would not consider banning eponyms,
says ICZN president Thomas Pape, a taxonomist at the Natural History
Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. “We do not recommend renaming unless
there are what we would call formal nomenclatural reasons,” he adds.
This is because the organization places great importance on preserving
the ‘stability’ of names, and this could be threatened if they are
changed retrospectively, he says."

[John Harshman]

What is this in regard to?

[Popping Mad]

On 2/21/24 12:01, erik simpson wrote:
> Do we really need to apologize for the bad thoughts of our predecessors? T

I have no longer any tolerance for this crap. This mindset has fucked
up my life and is destroying my city.

[erik simpson]

Whoop. Forget the reference:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00388-y

[John Harshman]

Sadly, not one single specific complaint. What are the 3% of bad
dinosaur names? Nobody says. What's wrong with them? Nobody says.

[erik simpson]

Not blaming anything specific leaves more possible targets. I wish
problems we have right now got more attention than problems from the past.

[John Harshman]

Well, nobody is saying that any existing names should be changed, and
the ICZN doesn't allow it anyway. This is a proposal for what ought to
happen in the future.

But there's not much even about what the new rules ought to be. One
might suppose that eponyms are discouraged, and descriptive names
encouraged. But it isn't clear what beyond that is proposed.

[erik simpson]

There are some suggestions: “emanating racism, sexism, named under
(neo)colonial contexts or after controversial figures”. There is an
added note that "The team’s analysis has not yet been published or
peer-reviewed."

[jillery]

Perhaps new rules will avoid names like "Scrotum humanum" which is the
name originally given to megalosaurus by Richard Brookes.