Skip to main content

What are the contributions of Carl Linnaeus?

Carolus Linnaeus was instrumental in developing a system for the classification of living things. It is known as binomial nomenclature. It is still used today.


Each species is assigned a two-name scientific name that is universally understood by all scientists. It is generally written in Latin. By the 1700's, the names that scientists used to classify organisms were generally long and very confusing. The system devised by Linnaeus made taxonomy (the naming of organisms) much simpler.


The genus name is assigned because it represents a group of closely related species. An example of this is the genus Canis. This represents organisms that are in the canine group including dogs, jackals and wolves.


The next part of the scientific name is the species name. The definition of a species is a group of organisms who can interbreed. Canis lupus is the scientific name for gray wolves.


During Linneaeus' time organisms were categorized into categories from most general to most specific in the following order: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. Based on evidence of the time, classification was mainly done based on similarities that could be observed. Today, evolutionary relationships, DNA evidence, etc. help scientists to classify organisms in a more precise way.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more