In the current issue of Wired Magazine there is really interesting article about the history of the system of genus and species that biologists use. It has remained relatively constant in structure and organization for the past several centuries. Some scientists believe that there would be a better way to classify that is based on recent advances in DNA and other biological knowledge, but most say that it still works fine and holds up fairly well.

Most scientists say that 272 years after it was introduced, the naming system works just fine. Evolutionary theory and molecular biology have transformed our understanding of life. Computers and digital media have more recently upended longstanding theories of information management. But, over nearly three centuries, the classification system used to organize much of our biological knowledge has remained remarkably arbitrary and ancient: The so-called binomial system of genus and species that Linse and thousands of other biologists use today was first proposed by a Swedish biologist born 300 years ago Wednesday, Carolus Linnaeus.

Biological classification may seem like an esoteric problem better left to librarians than field researchers, but it is reaching unprecedented importance as discoveries swell the existing rolls of some 1.8 million known species, and prominent scientists such as E.O. Wilson throw their backing behind an ambitious project to make taxonomic data for all of life on Earth accessible online. Classification systems, meanwhile, have themselves become the subject of intensive study, thanks to the explosion in data-labeling and -sorting procedures allowed by digital media.

Linnaeus, a devout Christian with no concept of evolution, today might barely recognize much of the system he spawned. But his approach was remarkably modern. He bridged religious and scientific conceptions of nature, ordering the world as was most convenient, rather than seeking to describe how it truly was. His goal was not to uncover the hidden connections between organisms, but simply to give labels to ensure biologists could agree on what they were talking about.

“Taxonomy” is a hierarchical browser that visualizes the classification tree found in the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, which incorporates Carolus Linnaeus’ centuries-old naming system and organizing principles.

The result was a system that’s considered as important a scientific framework as the Babylonian calendar or the Earth-centric model of the universe. In other words, much of it was wrong, but it was an amazingly adaptable foundation that future generations could build upon to describe the world, and our place in it, reasonably accurately, scientists say.

The complete article from Wired: “What’s in a Name? The Future of Life”