Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology.
Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. Linnaeus got most of his higher education at Uppsala University, and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 60s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, and published several volumes. At the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe.
The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly. Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum (Prince of Botanists), "The Pliny of the North," and "The Second Adam.
In botany, the author abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species' names is L. In 1959, Carl Linnaeus was designated as the lectotype for Homo sapiens, which means that following the nomenclatural rules, Homo sapiens was validly defined as the animal species to which Linnaeus belonged.
Views on mankind
According to German biologist Ernst Haeckel, the question of man's origin began with Linnaeus. He helped future research in the natural history of man by describing humans just as he described any other plant or animal. He was the first person to place humans in a system of biological classification. He put humans under Homo sapiens among the primates in the first edition of Systema Naturae. During his time at Hartecamp, he had the opportunity to examine several monkeys and noted several similarities between them and man. He pointed out both species basically have the same anatomy; except for the speech, he found no other differences. Thus he placed man and monkeys under the same category, Antroprmorpha, meaning "manlike." This classification received criticism from other botanists such as Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Jacob Theodor Klein and Johann Georg Gmelin on the ground that it is illogical to describe a human as 'like a man'. In a letter to Gmelin from 1747, Linnaeus replied:
It does not please [you] that I've placed Man among the Antropomorpha, but man learns to know himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name we apply. But I seek from you and from the whole world a generic difference between man and simian that follows from the principles of Natural History. I absolutely know of none. If only someone might tell me a single one! If I would have called man a simian or vice versa, I would have brought together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to have by virtue of the law of the discipline.
The theological concerns were twofold: first, putting man at the same level as monkeys or apes would lower the spiritually higher position that man was assumed to have in the great chain of being, and second, because the Bible says man was created in the image of God, if monkeys/apes and humans were not distinctly and separately designed, that would mean monkeys and apes were created in the image of God as well. This was something many could not accept. The conflict between worldviews based on science and theology that was caused by asserting man was a type of animal would simmer for a century until the much greater, and still ongoing, creation–evolution controversy began in earnest with the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859.
After such criticism, Linnaeus felt he needed to explain himself more clearly. The 10th edition of Systema Naturae introduced new terms, including Mammalia and Primate, the latter of which would replace Antropomorpha. The new classification received less criticism, but many natural historians still believed he had demoted humans from their former place to rule over nature, not be a part of it. Linnaeus believed that man biologically belongs to the animal kingdom and had to be included in it. In his book Dieta Naturalis, he said, "One should not vent one's wrath on animals, Theology decree that man has a soul and that the animals are mere 'aoutomata mechanica,' but I believe they would be better advised that animals have a soul and that the difference is of nobility.
Linnaeus added a second human species in Systema Naturae, the Homo troglodytes or caveman. This name was based on a figure and description by Bontius from 1658, which referred to a female Indonesian or Malayan human and the description to an orang utan. In these times, tales on human species were based on myths from people who claimed they had seen something looking like a human. Most of these tales were scientifically accepted, and in early editions of Systema Naturae, many mythical animals were included, such as the phoenix, dragon and unicorn. Linnaeus placed them under the category Paradoxa; the Swedish historian Gunnar Broberg thought Linnaeus was trying to offer a natural explanation and demystify the world of superstition. Linnaeus tried to classify the mythical creatures, and to discover if, for example, the Homo troglodytes existed. He asked the Swedish East Indian Trade Company to search for one. They did not find any signs of its existence. Broberg believes the new human species Linnaeus described were monkeys or native people clad in skins to frighten colonial settlers, whose appearance had been exaggerated in accounts to Linnaeus. In 1771, Linné published another name for a nonhuman primate in the genus Homo, which was Homo lar; this name is used for the lar gibbon, as Hylobates lar (Linné, 1771).
Commemoration
Anniversaries of Linnaeus' birth, especially in centennial years, have been marked by major celebrations. In 1807, events were held in Sweden that included Linnaeus' daughters and apostles, such as Afzelius who was then head of the short-lived Linnéska institutet. A century later, celebrations of the bicentennial expanded globally and were even larger in Sweden. At Uppsala University, honorary doctorates were given to Ernst Haeckel, Francis Darwin and Selma Lagerlöf, among others. The memorials were so numerous that newspaper columnists began to tire of them and printed caricatures of the esteemed Linnaeus. In 1917, on the 210th anniversary of Linnaeus' birth, the Swedish Linnaeus Society was founded and proceeded to restore the Linnaean Garden, which had fallen into disrepair. In 2007, tricentennial celebrations were held. During that year a documentary titled Expedition Linnaeus was produced, which was intended to increase public understanding of and respect for nature.
The Linnean Society of London has awarded the Linnean Medal for excellence in botany or zoology since 1888. Starting in 1978, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the death of Linnaeus, the Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society has been awarded in recognition of work done by a biologist under the age of forty.
The Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh holds a monument to Linnaeus, near the hothouses. It was designed by the noted Scots architect Robert Adam in 1778. It has a portrait head in low relief set on an oval urn. It was erected in 1779 by Dr John Hope (1725–1760) Regius Keeper of the Garden. It originally stood in the Botanic Garden on Haddington Place. Hope was the first to introduce the Linnean system of classification to Scotland.
The Linnean Society of New South Wales awards a bursary to assist botany, zoology or geology students at the University of Sydney.
The Australian National University (ANU) campus has a road named Linnaeus Way, which runs past several biology buildings.
Gustavus Adolphus College began its eponymous Linnaeus Arboretum in 1973.
The asteroid 7412 Linnaeus and Linné (crater) on the Earth's moon were named in his honor.
The nightshade species Solanum linnaeanum and twinflower genus Linnaea were named in his honor.
Linnaeus has appeared on numerous Swedish postage stamps and banknotes. In 1986, a new 100 kronor bill was introduced featuring a portrait of Linnaeus, drawings of pollinating plants from his Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum, a sketch of the Linnaean Garden and a quote, often described as Linnaeus' motto, from Philosophia Botanica which reads "OMNIA MIRARI ETIAM TRITISSIMA": Find wonder in all things, even the most commonplace.
Following approval by the Parliament of Sweden, Växjö University and Kalmar College merged on 1 January 2010; the resulting institution was named Linnaeus University in his honor.
