Editorial: From a Biological Point of View

摘要

'Biodiversity crisis' is a notion that currently occupies a place in governmental agendas in the developing world. Likewise, awareness of the 'taxonomic impediment' now contributes to shape concerns about the sustainability of everyday life in post-industrial societies. Well before that, though, the systematic study of biological diversity had advanced steadily in Europe, particularly during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Historians recognize that biological system-atics (in the modern sense of the phrase) derived initially from the incipient work of a multinational, heterogeneous assemblage of 'naturalists'--the iconic 'specimen-gatherers' that were at times passengers in ships bound for long-term expeditions departed from the busiest European commercial ports. In retrospect, it is not difficult to argue that the organization of the ever-increasing amount of information from living beings not previously seen (let alone imagined to exist) that inhabited territories far away from the corresponding centers of colonial expansion was a major interest for those early forgers of 'the science of biodiversity'.1 The establishment of the 'Linnaean paradigm' of systematization of biological knowledge was a key component of the many-faceted cultural product we call 'Natural History';;undoubtedly, it was also one of the predominantly practical endeavors that contributed to the success of the Western project of Modernity. Oddly enough, it is from such cultural platform that statements in direct reference to an imminently endangered species diversity are generated today. As expected, some of these reflections (voiced on occasion by biologists of fame) have an admonitory flavor, as their authors vehemently declare that efforts oriented towards the rational preservation of life on the planet cannot wait.