• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Botanists Vote To Remove Racist Reference From Plants’ Scientific Names For First Time

July 22, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

After years of debate, botanists have now voted to change the scientific names of over 200 species of plant, fungi, and algae that make references to a racial slur, the first time such a move has been made.

Advertisement

The decision took place at the International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Madrid, where 351 out of the 556 people who attended voted in favor of changing names containing, or with roots in the word caffra, a slur that’s been used against Black people, particularly in South Africa.

Set to take effect at the end of July, the offensive term will be replaced with affra and various derivatives, as a way of making reference to the species’ African origins.

It’s a change that was first proposed by botanists Gideon F. Smith and Estrela Figueiredo of Nelson Mandela University back in 2021, calling for the shift to be made “permanently and retroactively”.

Speaking on the recent decision, Smith told Science: “[We] express our gratitude to our colleagues from around the globe who supported our efforts to rid botanical nomenclature of a despicable, racial slur.”

Though it was ultimately amended such that only new species names would be ruled on, there had also been a proposal to create a new committee that would vote on changing any offensive species name retroactively.

Advertisement

“It is time for the nomenclature of algae, fungi, and plants to get to grips with what has been perceived, at least by some, as its colonial past and deliberately, completely and irreversibly eliminate the use of such offending epithets from scientific plant names,” argued Smith and Figueiredo in their 2021 proposal.

Not everyone in the world of taxonomy takes the same stance. Last year, for example, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature stated its position was to keep the scientific names of animals the same, citing that to do otherwise would be “difficult to implement and unlikely to be recognized by the whole biological community.”

“The stability of scientific names is essential for all activities under the umbrella of biological science,” they wrote in a journal article stating their position.

That argument may well be undercut by the practical problems created when researchers find themselves in circumstances where they need to use a species’ scientific name, but it contains an offensive term.

Advertisement

“[I]t is very difficult to talk about such plants [in Africa], as it is a word that is even banned in some regions, creating a real communication problem,” explained botanist Sonia Molino, who had attended the IBC meeting, in a post to social media platform X.

The American Ornithological Society took a middle ground of sorts last November – while scientific names remained the same, it was decided to change the English names of birds named directly after people, with many birds having common names linked to people with ties to slavery, racism, and misogyny.

The debate over whether or not scientific and common names should be changed is one that is likely to rage on even in light of the recent vote – and that goes for disciplines outside of biology too.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Canada’s Conservatives pledge big spending, deficit reduction in election platform
  2. Evolito’s electric motors look set to take off in aerospace where YASA left off in automotive
  3. TWIS: Newly Discovered CRISPR-Like Systems May Be Used To Edit Human Genomes, Reconstructed Face Of 50,000-Year-Old Ancient Ancestor, And Much More This Week
  4. Can Peacocks Fly?

Source Link: Botanists Vote To Remove Racist Reference From Plants’ Scientific Names For First Time

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • What Is Cryptozoology? We Explore The History And Mystery Of This Controversial Field
  • The Universe’s “Red Sky Paradox” Just Got Darker: Most Stars Might Never Host Observers
  • Uranus And Neptune May Not Be “Ice Giants” But The Solar System’s First “Rocky Giants”
  • COVID-19 Can Alter Sperm And Affect Brain Development In Offspring, Causing Anxious Behavior
  • Why Do Spiders’ Legs Curl Up Like That When They’re Dead?
  • “Dead Men’s Fingers” Might Just Be The Strangest Fruit On The Planet
  • The South Atlantic’s Giant Weak Spot In The Earth’s Magnetic Field Is Growing
  • Nearly Half A Century After Being Lost, “Zombie Satellite” LES-1 Began Sending Signals To Earth
  • Extinct In the Wild, An Incredibly Rare Spix’s Macaw Chick Hatches In New Hope For Species
  • HUNTR/X Or Giant Squid? Following Alien Claims, We Asked Scientists What They Would Like Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS To Be
  • Flat-Earthers Proved Wrong Using A Security Camera And A Garage
  • Earth Breaches Its First Climate Tipping Point: We’re Moving Into A World Without Coral Reefs
  • Cheese Caves, A Proposal, And Chance: How Scientists Ended Up Watching Fungi Evolve In Real Time
  • Lab-Grown 3D Embryo Models Make Their Own Blood In Regenerative Medicine Breakthrough
  • Humans’ Hidden “Sixth Sense” To Be Mapped Following $14.2 Million Prize – What Is Interoception?
  • Purple Earth Hypothesis: Our Planet Was Not Blue And Green Over 2.4 Billion Years Ago
  • Hippos Hung Around In Europe 80,000 Years Later Than We Thought
  • Officially Gone: Slender-Billed Curlew, Once-Widespread Migratory Bird, Declared Extinct By IUCN
  • Watch: Rare Footage Captures Freaky Faceless Cusk Eels Lurking On The Deep-Sea Floor
  • Watch This Funky Sea Pig Dancing Its Way Through The Deep Sea, Over 2,300 Meters Below The Surface
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version