[Tweeters] re Historical Perspective on Re-naming Birds

[Dennis Paulson]

Chris, here’s my take on it.

Like several people who have written in, I see this movement to erase honorific names of dead people who we would consider unkind as having limited merit. It won’t change anything about the various -isms that are still common in our society, and good grief, why can’t all that energy and enthusiasm be directed where it should be? And I think the thing most wrong about it is not having any idea where it will stop. McCown was a Confederate general, yes, but I read that he had renounced slavery some time thereafter. That in itself is interesting and will be lost now that McCown is lost. Why not learn from history rather than erase it?

I think the ‘intellectual laziness’ referred mostly to the decision made that because we can’t really draw the line between bad dead people and good dead people, let’s make it easy on ourselves and cancel them all. I wouldn’t concern myself with it too much if it stopped with the common names of North American birds (although I do strongly object to that), but that very thing happening and being presented in an “official" way will encourage people to go even further.

Many of our states, counties, cities, streets, rivers, mountain peaks, etc., etc., will be proposed for renaming, won't they? Won’t this be a nightmare for map makers, book writers, historians of any kind—and the rest of the people who will be confused by all of this in the future? If I lived on Audubon Avenue, some day I might not be able to find my house . . .

The fact that people are even talking about changing scientific names is appalling to those of us who have named species and worked on their relationships. Such an activity certainly deserves all the resistance that can be generated against it. People with ideas such as that are at the forefront of making this a much more divisive than inclusive activity, as far as I can see.

Dennis Paulsn
Seattle


> On Nov 24, 2023, at 2:39 PM, J Christian Kessler <1northraven at gmail.com> wrote:

> 

> Mr. Egger --

> 

> I can only speak for myself. While I don't entirely agree with Dennis or Diane, I understand their point of view, and agree on some elements of it.  Your argument is fundamentally different than theirs:  you accuse all who advocate for "bird names for birds" in any form of being "intellectually lazy", and then proceed to conflat any proposal (beyond renaming McGown's Longspur and it appears a few others) with the most extreme sorts of proposals (some of which I have not heard being advocated by anyone, or even referred to seriously, prior to your note).  

> 

> Perhaps you could explain (1) how any/any proposal at renaming birds (again, beyond the renaming of McGown's Longspur and a few similar cases) is "intellectually lazy," and (2) how your your conflating virtually all imaginable proposals for change as being essentially the same is not itself "intellectually lazy".

> 

> Chris Kessler

> 

> 

> 

> On Fri, Nov 24, 2023 at 12:52 PM Mark Egger <m.egger at comcast.net <mailto:m.egger at comcast.net>> wrote:

> Agree completely with Diane and Dennis. This trendy name-changing obsession lacks any sort of nuance or reason and suggests the efforts of lazy people who want simplistic solutions to complex questions. As a life-long birder AND a dedicated botanist, this issue is one involving all naturalist pursuits. There are current purposals to not only alter common names but to ban all scientific names memorializing people AND to re-name all existing names of that sort. I find these proposals to be deeply flawed and absurd. There is absolutely no reason why these re-namings, some (e.g. McGown) that are quite justified, but in most cases blanket re-naming seems both intellectually lazy but a deep insult to an enormous number of biologists and naturalists who were very fine human beings and who devoted their lives to enriching our knowledge of the natural world and biodiversity.

> 

>> On Nov 24, 2023, at 12:01 PM, tweeters-request at mailman11.u.washington.edu <mailto:tweeters-request at mailman11.u.washington.edu> wrote:

>> 

>> Historical Perspective on Re-naming Birds (Diann MacRae)

> 

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