Showing papers in "AIBS Bulletin in 1963"
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TL;DR: In the field of botany, the goal of every scientist in every field is to make himself obsolete, to find out everything about his subject so that scientists can worry about new and different things as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Each time I go to a meeting of botanists and hear
them reporting to one another the many things they
are finding out, I begin to worry that soon everything
about botany will be known, and then what will botanists
do? The objective of every scientist in every field
is, in theory, to make himself obsolete, to find out everything
about his subject so that scientists can worry
about new and different things. How far are we from
achieving this goal in the field of botany? Of course, the
complete working out of a field of knowledge never really
happens. We merely approach it asymptotically. A field
of investigation in the natural sciences, as in botany, is
a kind of a natural resource waiting to be exploited. Its
exploitation follows the kinetics of the exploitation of
other natural resources such as coal, oil, and iron ore.
TL;DR: The naming of familiar animals was undoubtedly one of primitive man's early attempts at communication, but as time passed and modern man came to recognize many kinds of animals, he sought a nomenclature that would permit worldwide communication regarding them.
Abstract: The naming of familiar animals was undoubtedly one of primitive man's early attempts at communication. As time passed and modern man came to recognize many kinds of animals, he sought a nomenclature that would permit worldwide communication regarding them. A step in this direction was the Systema Naturae of Linnaeus-itself an adumbration of a code of zoological nomenclature. Thereafter appeared the so-called Stricklandian code,1 published in 1843 by the British Association for the Advancement of Science (2); the Dall code, published in 1878 by the American Association for the Advance-
TL;DR: Professor Bonner's notions on the present state of knowledge in various botanical fields are so oversimplified and inaccurate that they should be countered by a more realistic view of the prospects for the future of botanical science.
Abstract: that provide the misinformation upon which such judgments are based. The moral of Professor Bonner's provocative article concerning the necessity of feedback among the sciences is both obvious and true, but his notions on the present state of knowledge in various botanical fields are so oversimplified and inaccurate that they should be countered by a more realistic view of the prospects for the future of botanical science.