Scientific Classification in Biology Essay -- Papers Biological Classi

Scientific Classification in BiologyClassification in biology, is the identification, naming, and grouping of beingnesss into a formal dodge of rules. The vast numbers of alert forms are namedand arranged in an orderly manner so that biologists all over the world canbe sure they know the exact organism that is being examined and discussed.Groups of organisms must be defined by the selection of importantcharacteristics, or shared traits, that make the members of each groupsimilar to one other and unlike members of other groups. Modernclassification schemes also attempt to place groups into categories thatwill reflect an understanding of the evolutionary processes underlying thesimilarities and differences among organisms. Such categories form a kindof pyramid, or hierarchy, in which the different levels should representthe different degrees of evolutionary relationship. The hierarchy extendsupward from several million species, each made up of singular organismsthat are closely re lated, to a few kingdoms, each containing largeassemblages of organisms, many of which are only distantly related.Carolus Linnaeus is probably the single most dominant variety in systematicclassification. Born in 1707, he had a mind that was orderly to the extreme.People sent him plants from all over the world, and he would devise a wayto relate them. At the age of thirty-two he was the author of fourteenbotanical works. His two most famous were Genera Plantarum, developing anartificial cozy system, and Species Plantarum, a famous work where henamed and classified every plant known to him, and for the first time gaveeach plant a binomial. This binomial system was a vast improvement oversome of the old descri... ...ly and structurally too dissimilar to the speciescategorized above to fit into that scheme of taxonomy. Although this system is building complex and intricate at times, itsuniversality makes it a necessity. With out the system presently in use theworld would be y ears and years behind in their task to name all of theliving organisms on earth. This system is great but it is always possiblethat some new finding could cause the system to evolve to become moreinclusive. This system is by no means set in stone, and Linnaeus wouldprobably be astounded to see the way that it has evolved since his airplane pilotsystem.BibliographyBerkely University. www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html/Galbraith, Don. Understanding Biology. John Wiley and Sons. Toronto.1989,Microsoft. Encarta Encyclopedia 97. Microsoft Corporation. 1997