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Commentary
Nature 446, 259-260 (15 March 2007) | doi:10.1038/446259a; Published online 14 March 2007
nature jobs
Endowed Chair in Marine Genomics
- Medical University of South Carolina
- Charleston, SC
Postdoctoral Fellow - Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
- University of California, Berkeley
- Berkeley, CA, USA
Linnaeus in the information age
H. C. J. Godfray, Jr1
- H. C. J. Godfray is in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Park Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
Abstract
As we celebrate the visionary genius of Carl Linnaeus, it is time to analyse how professional taxonomy interfaces with the rest of biology and beyond. Where next for Linnaeus's heirs, asks H. C. J. Godfray?
It is one of the triumphs of contemporary science that we have a means of naming and referring to all described organisms on Earth, as well as their fossil ancestors. It was Carl Linnaeus who realized that, to understand anything in science, things have to have a name that is recognized and is universal — a lesson that has not been forgotten by the creators of today's gene and protein databases.
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