Department of History, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SH, UK.
Science. 2009 Dec 11;326(5959):1496-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1165915.
Classification was a key practice of the natural history sciences in the early 19th century, but leading taxonomists disagreed over basic matters, such as how many species the British flora contained. In this arena, the impact of Charles Darwin's ideas was surprisingly limited. For taxonomists like Darwin's friend, Joseph Dalton Hooker, the priority was to establish a reputation as a philosophical naturalist, and to do so Hooker embarked on a survey of global vegetation patterns. He believed that taxonomic "splitters" hindered his ambition to create natural laws for botany (and hence establish it as a prestigious science) by generating a multitude of redundant synonyms for every plant variety. Despite the fact that Darwin's ideas apparently promised a justification for splitting, they also offered a philosophical justification for Hooker's taxonomic practice, and so he enthusiastically championed his friend.
分类是 19 世纪早期自然历史科学的一项重要实践，但主要的分类学家在基本问题上存在分歧，例如英国植物群包含多少个物种。在这个领域，查尔斯·达尔文思想的影响出人意料地有限。对于像达尔文的朋友约瑟夫·道尔顿·胡克这样的分类学家来说，当务之急是树立一个哲学自然主义者的声誉，为了做到这一点，胡克开始对全球植被模式进行调查。他认为，分类“分裂者”通过为每种植物品种生成大量冗余同义词，阻碍了他为植物学建立自然法则（从而将其确立为一门有声望的科学）的雄心。尽管达尔文的思想显然为分裂提供了一个理由，但它们也为胡克的分类实践提供了一个哲学上的理由，因此他热情地支持他的朋友。
