Systematics as example of balanced Order vs. Disorder

[Kai]

Systematics (from the German, systematik, a system of natural classification) is the study of biodiversity, in three parts: 1. What are the units of biodiversity (commonly called species) 2. What are the relationships between the units of biodiversity and 3. How do the units of diversity come into being?

In this science, activities include naming of species, classifying of relationships between species, and characterizing variation of all forms within and between species. With 1.8 million and counting, you can imagine that keeping things sorted can become a problem. Here we have the myriad forms, and here as well we have HUMANS. I think saying that should be illustrative enough of how easily everything can become a mess. Consider, 20 different jealous driven people racing to name all the species they can and arguing over who is right, not to mention all the groups /above/ species level. It got to a point in the 1700s when various groups of taxonomists and other biologists/naturalists got down and serious about forming some sort of rules to clean things up.

Today, in Zoology (the study of animal life), we have the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. This group of zoologist produces the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, called ICZN or just "The Code" for short. The Code is a legal document that keeps the whole of biology functioning by defining how and when scientific names of animals are considered valid. It's an offshoot of the earlier Strickland Code, and it's meant to provide stability to scientific names and classifications in systematics, based within the Linnaean system.

Opposing this important stability which allows us to discuss life and make sense of it is the need to revise, refine and do away with various classification schemes as needed. Without the ability to make changes, and also (often) cause disorder, the Code becomes a bureaucratic tyranny and the whole of the system becomes static, and therefore inflexible and prone to collapsing like all bureaucracies. On the other hand, without the stability of the code, the whole of biodiversity would become as much of a useless mess as it was before any formal system of classification.

In that sense, the Code provides for both stability (Order) and change (Disorder) in a homeostatic equilibrium. The Principles of Priority, Homonymy and Synonymy provide rules for stability of names, while the lack of rules about HOW to classify and the same Principle of Synonymy allows flexibility. It's a document of Chaos, just as apparently chaotic as nature, containing both Order and Disorder.


So yes, I work with Chaos. Beat that.

[Sister Fracture]

Your job sounds awesome