Journal Number 92
September 2004

INTERNET ORCHIDS

Y'all Want Fries With That?
Gleanings from the Net on selling immortality in the form of a specific epithet....

"A colleague of mine, who is in the process of naming several newly discovered parasitic helminths, just auctioned off the specific epithet of one at a church auction. While the goal is admirable (to raise funds for charitable purposes), I am disturbed by the possibility that individuals could do this for simple profit. There is something here that smacks of the unethical, but it's hard to put my finger on it.

Many species have been named to honor individuals, including benefactors whose largesse provided support for the field work involved. But in those cases there was no explicit guarantee of the right to any name; i.e., it was always possible that no new species would be discovered. These auctions are different because the new species is already documented and waiting to be named. My own view is that the systematics community should discourage such practice."

"Raises the issue of "consumer protection" too: what happens if a supposed new species is found to be a variation of a previously existing one? Does the name-buyer get his/her money back?

Ultimately, the commercialisation of scientific names is a small scandal if it raises funds and awareness that, in some way, however indirectly, help protect the rapidly disappearing biodiversity that we are trying to document.

"Do you offer a guarantee with the name, sir? 'If I don't like the organism assigned to my name, can I exchange it for another kind?' `Can I have one of the paratypes? Oh, that'll be extra?
How much extra?"'

"It seems to me that consideration of the ethics involved with selling scientific names at auction forces a distinction between terms such as Patronomy and Partnership vs. others, such as Prostitution and Pandering. If systematic biology has been lowered to a position that forces this type of activity, then I guess it's an ethical path to follow. Seems to me it's a sad comment and also, if it becomes `accepted', another potential spam-generating element for the nomenclatural system."

"Just another symptom of the increasingly mercenary (and hence ugly) world of human affairs."

"I would like to know what is the price of new name of new species, if you talk to name a beetle for 20 bucks is making thunderstorm in coffeecup."

"This is absolutely right. The thing that has most offended me about this whole names-for-money thing is the way paying miniscule amounts for the `right' to specify the names cheapens taxonomy. The Canadian Museum of Nature recently `sold' one of Bob Anderson's weevils for $500. If these sales are to be held, the sums the names are sold for should at least be enough to pay for the discovery, description, and publication of the name, and cover curatorial care of the type series for a few decades."

"While I agree with the uneasiness of many people commenting on this issue, I think it should not be restricted to the `sale of names'. The idea which strikes me in this move by the Audubon society is that somebody will take the patronage for a highly endangered species. In doing so, she or he should be interested in preserving the continued existence of this species.

Quite correctly, somebody pointed out that a species named smithii does not really belong to a person after which it was named. However, if the action extends beyond the auction, the patronage may be more than just the buying of a name. Judicious use of name-patrons may help in the protection of some species. I prefer living species with a name sold at an auction to extinct species in museums or books."