Name: Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science
ISBN: 9780393338713

Carol Kaesuk Yoon

Traces the human drive and cognitive capacity for naming the living world, evaluating the contributions of such figures as Linnaeus and Darwin while exploring the human preference for familiar, rather than scientific, names.

Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science

Laura Mauler

The author gets repetitious at certain points, and sometimes over-explains ideas. However, this wasn't a deal breaker for me, I was entertained throughout the whole book. Also, I learned a lot of new things about nature and taxonomy, which was the whole point of my reading it. Like most good non-fiction that I have read, this book made me take stock of how I live my life and think about changes that I should make. Will I actually make them? Meh. But I will certainly think about them, and the author's arguments for them, and who knows what this percolation will brew.

This surprising, untold story about the poetic and deeply human (cognitive) capacity to name the natural world illuminates science's limitations and the urgency of staying connected to the natural world by using familiar, rather than scientific, names.

Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science

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