Biological type specimens are a particular kind of voucher specimen stored in natural history collections. Their special status and practical use are discussed in relation to the description and naming of taxonomic zoological diversity. Our current system, known as Linnaean nomenclature, is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. The name of a species is fixed by its name-bearing type specimen, linking the scientific name of a species to the type specimen first designated for that species. The name-bearing type (...) specimen is not necessarily a typical example of the species, while establishment of the boundaries of a species requires empirical taxonomic studies. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature allows for the naming of new species in the absence of preserved specimens. However, photos and DNA sequences should not function as primary type material, while new species should not be described and named without deposition of at least one type specimen in a collection. Philosophically, species are individuals, spatiotemporally restricted entities. Therefore, Linnaean species names are proper names, which do not define the taxon but serve as a label, providing an ostensive definition of a species. Paratypes have no name-bearing function but, nevertheless, are highly valued specimens in natural history collections. Paratypes should be restricted to those specimens originating from the same sample as the holotype. Diagnosis of a species taxon involves establishment of a connection between a Linnaean name and determination of the boundaries of the species. A first step in this process is the choice of an appropriate species concept. It is not the examination of holotypes and paratypes that necessarily provides the best estimate of the taxonomic boundaries of a species, but this is facilitated by a set of voucher specimens known as the hypodigm. Dissatisfaction with the present nomenclatural code led some researchers to propose emendations. Other taxonomists suggested abandoning Linnaean nomenclature and proposed the alternative PhyloCode, albeit that it relegates the naming of species taxa to the traditional nomenclatural codes. (shrink)

193 and 246 of Linnaeus's Philosophia botanica have recently been invoked to suggest that Linnaeus used, or even introduced, the "Method of Type", which implies that a genus is centred around a "typical" species. However, there is no support for this conclusion in either of the two paragraphs, rather the opposite. A recapitulation of the last twenty years' reassessment of Linnaeus's taxonomic philosophy is given.

Chronostratigraphy is the subfield of geology that studies the relative age of rock strata and that aims at producing a hierarchical classification of (global) divisions of the historical time-rock record. The ‘golden spike’ or ‘GSSP’ approach is the cornerstone of contemporary chronostratigraphic methodology. It is also perplexing. Chronostratigraphers define each global time-rock boundary extremely locally, often by driving a gold-colored pin into an exposed rock section at a particular level. Moreover, they usually avoid rock sections that show any meaningful sign (...) of paleontological disruption or geological discontinuity: the less obvious the boundary, the better. It has been argued that we can make sense of this practice of marking boundaries by comparing the status and function of golden spikes to that of other concrete, particular reference standards from other sciences: holotypes from biological taxonomy and measurement prototypes from the metrology of weight and measures. Alisa Bokulich (2020b) has argued that these ‘scientific types’ are in an important sense one of a kind: they have a common status and function. I will argue that this picture of high-level conceptual unity is mistaken and fails to consider the diversity of aims and purposes of standardization and classification across the sciences. I develop an alternative, disunified account of scientific types that shows how differences in ontological attitudes and epistemic aims inform scientists’ choices between different kinds of scientific types. This perspective on scientific types helps to make sense of an intriguing mid-twentieth-century debate among chronostratigraphers about the very nature of their enterprise. Should chronostratigraphers conventionally make boundaries by designating golden spikes, or should they attempt to mark pre-existing ‘natural’ boundaries with the help of a different kind of scientific type? (shrink)

The collection and classification of data into meaningful categories is a key step in the process of knowledge making. In the life sciences, the design of data discovery and integration tools has relied on the premise that a formal classificatory system for expressing a body of data should be grounded in consensus definitions for classifications. On this approach, exemplified by the realist program of the Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry, progress is maximized by grounding the representation and aggregation of data on (...) settled knowledge. We argue that historical practices in systematic biology provide an important and overlooked alternative approach to classifying and disseminating data, based on a principle of coordinative rather than definitional consensus. Systematists have developed a robust system for referring to taxonomic entities that can deliver high quality data discovery and integration without invoking consensus about reality or “settled” science. (shrink)

What is it to make an error in the identification of a named taxonomic group? In this article we argue that the conditions for being in error about the identity of taxonomic groups through their names have a history, and that the possibility of committing such errors is contingent on the regime of institutions and conventions governing taxonomy and nomenclature at any given point in time. More specifically, we claim that taxonomists today can be in error about the identity of (...) taxonomic groups in a way that Carl Linnaeus, who is routinely cited as the “founder” of modern taxonomy and nomenclature, simply could not be. Starting from a remarkable recent study into Linnaeus’s naming of Elephasmaximus that led to the discovery of a nomenclatural error by him, we reconsider what it could mean to discover that Linnaeus misidentified a biological taxon in applying his taxon names. Through a further case study in Linnaean botany, we show that his practices of applying names in taxonomic revisions reveal a take on determining “which taxon is which” that is strikingly different from that of contemporary taxonomists. Linnaeus, we argue, adopted a practice-based, hands-on concept of taxa as “nominal spaces” that could continue to represent the same taxon even if all its former members had been reallocated to other taxa. (shrink)