Putting the cart before the horse: SeqCode’s attempt to solve systematics issues with changes to nomenclature

Abstract

This opinion paper examines the recent proposal for a new nomenclatural code for prokaryotes (SeqCode). It addresses four problematic issues: (1) epistemological—failure of the SeqCode to acknowledge taxa as explanatory hypotheses, (2) conceptual—designating as a name-bearer a coded section of the genome of an organism, (3) operational—changing nomenclatural procedure as a means of resolving systematic challenges, and (4) political (policy)—SeqCode developed independent in opposition to the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes (ICSP). Each of these matters should be alarms to the scientific community as the SeqCode proposal embodies many potentially negative consequences that would dramatically hinder systematics (science) and nomenclature (a tool in science) in other groups of organisms, e.g., animals, plants, fungi, if analogous proposals were sought.