THE NAME OF THE ROSE

["Matthew Troutman" <m_troutman@hotmail.com>]

    Ah, one of my favorite books of all time is a nice long complicated 
diddy about murder, a library that is a labyrinth, monks, the Apocalypse, 
the Antichrist, and a secret book.  Yes, to those who have seen the (very 
inferior) Sean Connery movie adaptation, it is _The Name of the Rose_ by 
Umberto Eco.

All these talks about taxonomy and nice images such as "a rose by any other 
name", made me think about one the themes of the book; meaning and the quest 
for truth.  Eco said that he chose the name _The Name of the Rose_ because 
it was a term so rich in meaning that it hardly seemed to have any meaning 
anymore.  Now, if you read the book (hopefully somebody will), you will 
understand why this makes so much sense.  But I'm digressing...

All this talk about Linnean vs. cladistic classifications is something that 
cuts right into the heart of evolutionary biology.  How can we classify life 
in a way that accurately depicts the way that life has twisted and turned 
through Deep Time (another book that should be read)?  In my mind, there is 
only one way: cladistic classifications.  They have less of a 
non-evolutionary history (none, really); they, when accurately read, reveal 
evolutionary relationships *scientifically*; they are able to be changed 
according to the FACTS, not to the whim of a faux-Linneaus.

I think that Linnean classifications are so sodden with pre-Darwinian themes 
of (then) great philosophical import (typology, archetypalism, essenses, 
types, ideals, Plato), that they have lost all their meaning.  Let me 
repeat:  THEY HAVE LOST ALL THEIR MEANING.  We no longer have to appeal to 
outdated essenses and Pythagorean, Platonic ideals and numbers and measures 
in nature thanks to the evolutionary structure of nature found by Charles 
Darwin and Alfred Wallace.

One of the other themes in _The Name of the Rose_ is how truth can be found 
in a completely fallacious premise, argument, attitude, etc.  Linnean 
classifications have helped us find out certain things about nature, however 
wrong their base philosophies are, but the day is here to do away with them.

A positively final appeal,

Matt Troutman
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