Did they have any option but accept? With only 4 out of the 10 members
and 1 of the 6 Technical Advisors of the South American Classification
Committee (SACC) from "south of the border" and representing only 3
countries in South and Central America it is hardly representative of
the Continent.
My point is that the AOU and the ABA have an unhealthy attitude to the
rest of the Ornithological world, rather like the attitude of the US
government towards the UN. There is an international body to guide
avian nomenclature and while not perfect, should not be undermined by
cow-boyish decisions made with little consultation with the rest of
the Ornithological world, often with little basis. An example is the
rejection by the AOC of the IOC recommendation in 2007 to remove
hyphens from 126 compound group names on the grounds that it "would de-
stabilize world Ornithology" Really? Ornithology should be treated
like a science, not an extension of of American foreign policy. We all
know where that is taking us.
On the subject of Professor Van Remsen, I do not remember saying
anything about, let alone denigrate his research. He is a brilliant
scientist and deserves great respect for it.
Carl Clifford
On 07/01/2008, at 8:10 PM, Andrew Taylor wrote:
On Sun, Jan 06, 2008 at 04:56:34PM +1100, Carl Clifford wrote:
Seeing as the official language in Belize is English* and is a
British colony,
I can not imagine why they would object to
English language common names. They may object to them being
imposed by the Americans though.
Indeed English is spoken in Belize which was the point of my attempt
at
humour (but it became independent from Britain in 1981). Its possible
they there is anti-SACC feeling in Belize but I rather doubt they
resent
Van Remsen and other US members of SACC choosing English common names
(or the Brazilian, Argentinian, Columbian & Chilean members of SACC).
Incidentally I heard Van Remsen give an impressive & sweeping talk
on hummingbird taxonomy last year - easy to see how he got the job
chairing SACC.
Andrew
|
