Illiger’s Prodromus 13 Nov 2009 Does anyone have a scan of Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger’s Prodromus systematis et mammalium avium (1811), or at least the introductory section? It appears that Illiger is the one who introduced the rank of family to the Linnean system, and I’d like to find out more. Late note: Thanks to reader Veronica Abbass, I have the link. It wasn’t visible from Australia for some strange reason. And as far as I can make out the Latin in the Lectori, he introduces family on page x as necessary because there are too many genera to group into orders. Biology History Natural Classification Systematics
History Follies d’Air 30 Dec 2007 The New York Times has a long overdue article on the stupidity of airport security measures for those flying to, within or in markets affected by the United States post-9/11. Pointing out that the security screening at airports in no way reduces any threats (but screening luggage does considerably), and… Read More
History Rovian dialogue 3 Nov 200818 Sep 2017 I’ve had this on my office door for four years now. Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design Noah’s Ark and the creation of the species rank 19 Jun 201719 Jun 2017 This is a section of my forthcoming revision to Species, presented here for comments that I can steal – umm, I mean for peer commentary. At this point in our narrative, we still do not have a uniquely biological notion of species, nor of a fixed rank in logic. As species concepts evolved,… Read More
Thanks Veronica, but I have to pay for that version. And Gallica lacks a copy. It’s a dual German/Latin edition, by the way.
It doesn’t help in this case, but if you’re not already aware of http://www.biolib.de it’s worth you taking a note. Internet Archive has a 1800 book by Illiger. Apparently so does Google Books, but it’s one of those ones that don’t come up on searches. (I don’t know why – are some books restricted to US readers?)