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Article: Not quite Homo sapiens, not yet; Three hundred years ago a Swedish botanist worked out a system to map the grand scale of life - one that we still rely on today.(News)
- Article from:
- The Sunday Independent (South Africa)
- Article date:
- May 27, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Independent News & Media PLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BYLINE: Heather Dugmore
If it's all in the name then the man who anti-prophetically named us Homo sapiens (Latin for "wise men") might have rethought the nature of species these past 300 years. The man was Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist and physician, who was born in Sweden on May 23 1707.
This Wednesday past was his 300th birthday and Sweden made merry as only the Swedes can do in spring, with light-filled tributes to one of the most influential scientists of all time.
Linnaeus, who trained and practised as a physician in Sweden, took the risk of classifying us as an animal among animals, placing us in the order of Primates and curiously ...