Free Republic

ST. PETER, Minn. (AP) — A private college in Minnesota has renamed its arboretum that honored an 18th-century Swedish botanist who has been criticized for classifying humans in a way now seen as racist, school officials said Tuesday. The popular greenspace at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, located about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of the Twin Cities, has been known as the “Linnaeus Arboretum” since 1988. It recognized Carl Linnaeus, who popularized a system of classifying living things and divided them into the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. Recently, though, Linnaeus has been criticized for his 18th century...

Carl Linnaeus introduced the systematic classification upon which all subsequent natural history has been built. This Nature web focus brings together a range of material celebrating the tercentenary of his birth in 1707, including features on how the explosion of genetic data changes the way we look at taxonomy, and the conflict between professionals and amateurs when naming species. There are also commentaries by leading taxonomists on the future of their field, articles on Linnaeus's global network of contacts and even his lost and lamented pet raccoon, original research on the origin of flowering plants and a review on speciation...