"Research revealed new information that altered our understanding...".
Yes, that's great!
"The only way for the names to be stable is for scientists to quit studying plants."
Absolutely & hopefully not! Any info about a thing, and the name of the thing to which the info attaches, are 2 different things. The name doesn't need to comprise any info, to serve its' purpose, just to be unique and stable. It just needs to lead us to whatever info is available about it. Info needs to attach to something - a name - that, IMVHO, shouldn't change, except for reasons I mentioned, never because someone discovered something new.
Giving a thing a new name doesn't eliminate the old name. And it's then necessary to find the old name to know what the new info is about. Unless/until all info attached to the old name is transferred to the new name, even those learning the new name first will need to seek the old name to find the info still only attached to the old name. Unless/until all people using a name adopt the new one, discussion about name history before discussion about attributes will be necessary to make sure everyone is talking about the same thing.
"Taxonomy, at its most fundamental level, is the study of how organisms are related to each other. It would, frankly, be insane to not use genetics to further that study. I guarantee you the people involved in it take the work seriously. They devote a significant chunk of their lives to it."
Absolutely, I don't dispute or disrespect that in any way. It is because I think such info is so valuable that I am concerned. As I keep saying, any investigation and increased knowledge is good. Appending the found info to a known name makes it most useful, and doesn't unnecessarily put the info at risk of being lost because the name of thing to which the info attaches has been changed. Results of investigation about a thing need only be reflected by/in its' name if it is decided to change names to do that.
Genetics is the pinnacle of scientific knowledge about such things today. What will be being investigated in the future? Humans find a thing, give it a name, and begin investigating through the tools available at the time, accumulating info about the thing that they can share by attaching the info to its' name. Changing the name because what is known today conflicts with what was known yesterday creates unnecessary confusion and potential info transfer fail. If we lose track of what's being discussed, all of the investigation and gleaned info is a moot and lost point, tragic. Humans used to "know" many things which are now "known" to be false. Comprehension is always expanding, who knows what we will "know" tomorrow, a lot of which will conflict with current supposed facts. Thank goodness somebody kept investigating that "earth is flat" thing even though we knew it was true.
"I'm not even sure the pace of change is much faster now than it was then."
Good point, very helpful. Possible, even likely, that it only *seems* like many changes are recent since the WWW is there to check such things at whim in regard to anything previously printed. I don't investigate changes to the point of the date when the change was made, and just because I discover a newer name recently doesn't mean a change has just happened. Even years after a change but still before the WWW, researching such a thing before publishing a book, for example, would have been much more cumbersome and probably not considered a usual or necessary process. So date of publication probably shouldn't cause an assumption that every newest possible name at the time was used.
Were the changed names of plants not something so pervasive in my life, a subject of daily involvement, I would never notice that it's happening. My only reasons for being involved are some potted plants and average landscape interests, extremely common non-professional interests into which the subject is unavoidable if one wants to know what their plants are called. All garden/plant forums have a facility for "naming the plants," even Facebook. Throughout all of them, countless people daily feel compelled to find the name of a plant. Probably like most people who don't want to be involved, and aren't professionally, but also find that they are sometimes involved in a discussion about a changed plant name, I feel forced into binomial nomenclature and taxonomy, a subject I don't find particularly interesting, but necessary to investigate enough to use to the degree that it's relevant to me and one of my most consuming hobbies.
Kent, thank you for taking the time to read what I said share info and your thoughts. I want to be able to support the changing of plant names. If I wasn't so anxious to get my mind in that camp, I'd have very little to say about this, if anything. Whatever my opinion may be, using changed names can't be avoided, so it would be easier to not have an opinion dead set against it.
Supposing Coleus is given preferred/accepted status again, what is the taxonomy/genetics class lesson about the tale of the Coleus ID crisis?
