Dos consejos: La sistemática al servicio de la botánica y la importancia de épocas pasadas
La página de bienvenida al libro Plant Variation and Evolution del que son autores D Briggs and SM Walters recoge las siguientes citas:
The standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without improving the mind, or advancing any real knowledge; and, where the science is carried no further than a mere mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means content with a list of names; he should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation; and graft the gardener, the planter and the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not that system is by any means be thrown aside; without system the field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness; but system should be subservient to, not the main object of pursuit.
Gilbert White. The Natural History of Shelborne 1789
«..there is no better method for scientists of one period to bring to light their own unconscious, or at least undiscussed, presuppositions (which may insidiously undermine all their work) than to study their own subject in a different period. And… when the writtings of an earlier author have apparently been taken as the basis of subsequent work, constant scrutiny is neccesary to prevent his presuppositions becoming fossilized, so to speak, in the subject and producing unnoticed inconsistencies when modifications have been made as a result of subsequent work.»
Que traduzco:
La eterna objeción a la botánica ha sido, que es una actividad que divierte a la fantasía y ejercicita la memoria, sin mejorar la mente, o avanzar en un conocimiento real y, cuando la ciencia no se lleva más allá de una mera clasificación sistemática simple, tal acusación es muy cierta. Sin embargo, el botánico que está deseoso de librarse de tal carga no debe contentarse con una lista de nombres, sino que debe estudiar las plantas filosóficamente, investigar las leyes de la vegetación, examinar los poderes y las virtudes de las hierbas eficaces, promover su cultivo , e injertar el jardinero, el sembrador y el labrador, en el Botánico. No hay que despreciar la sistemática. Sin la sistemática la naturaleza sería un desierto sin caminos, pero el sistema debe estar al servicio, no ser el objeto principal de búsqueda.
Gilbert White. The Natural History of Shelborne 1789
AJ Cain, 1958
Imagen superior: Portada del libro Plant Variation and Evolution
Imagen inferior: El Bosque Petrificado de Puyango en Ecuador. Tomada de Ecuador Travel.