TY - JOUR

T1 - Pattern Without Process

T2 - Eugen Smirnov and the Earliest Project of Numerical Taxonomy (1923–1938)

AU - Vinarski, Maxim V.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - The progress towards mathematization or, in a broader context, towards an increased “objectivity” is one of the main trends in the development of biologicalsystematics in the past century. It is commonplace to start the history of numericaltaxonomy with the works of R. R. Sokal and P. H. A. Sneath that in the 1960s laidthe foundations of this school of taxonomy. In this article, I discuss the earliestresearch program in this feld, developed in the 1920s by the Russian entomologist and biometrician Eugen (Evgeniy Sergeevich) Smirnov. The theoretical andmethodological grounds of this program are considered based on the publishedworks of Smirnov as well as some archival sources. The infuence of Smirnov’sevolutionary (mechano-Lamarckian) convictions on the development of this projectof “exact systematics” is analyzed as well as the author’s attempts to establish anovel concept of “mathematical essentialism” in animal taxonomy. The probablecauses of the failure of Smirnov’s project are viewed from both externalist andinternalist perspectives, including the opposition to the use of quantitative methodsin biology by some of the Lysenkoist ideologists in the USSR. A brief comparisonof Smirnov’s research program with that developed 40 years later by Sokal andSneath is provided.

AB - The progress towards mathematization or, in a broader context, towards an increased “objectivity” is one of the main trends in the development of biologicalsystematics in the past century. It is commonplace to start the history of numericaltaxonomy with the works of R. R. Sokal and P. H. A. Sneath that in the 1960s laidthe foundations of this school of taxonomy. In this article, I discuss the earliestresearch program in this feld, developed in the 1920s by the Russian entomologist and biometrician Eugen (Evgeniy Sergeevich) Smirnov. The theoretical andmethodological grounds of this program are considered based on the publishedworks of Smirnov as well as some archival sources. The infuence of Smirnov’sevolutionary (mechano-Lamarckian) convictions on the development of this projectof “exact systematics” is analyzed as well as the author’s attempts to establish anovel concept of “mathematical essentialism” in animal taxonomy. The probablecauses of the failure of Smirnov’s project are viewed from both externalist andinternalist perspectives, including the opposition to the use of quantitative methodsin biology by some of the Lysenkoist ideologists in the USSR. A brief comparisonof Smirnov’s research program with that developed 40 years later by Sokal andSneath is provided.

KW - Principles of classifcation

KW - Numerical taxonomy

KW - Eugene Smirnov

KW - Mechano-lamarckism

KW - Biometry

KW - Lysenkoism

KW - Principles of classification

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139987794&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/7a61799c-cbca-3f0e-b0cf-197a77994377/

U2 - 10.1007/s10739-022-09688-3

DO - 10.1007/s10739-022-09688-3

M3 - Article

VL - 55

SP - 559

EP - 583

JO - Journal of the History of Biology

JF - Journal of the History of Biology

SN - 0022-5010

IS - 3

ER -