Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast. Each episode we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics. I'm Susan Vallett.

Carl Linnaeus was probably not the first scientist to realize the inherent connectedness of life on this planet. But he articulated and codified it.

In the 10th edition of his Systema Natura, published in 1758, he established a system of naming

and organizing life that endures to this day. We still call it Linene taxonomy, although today's system is

somewhat different from the five-rank hierarchy he proposed. The principle is the same, though. Life

is organized into nested ranks, with each higher tier representing a larger group of related

organisms to which the species at the bottom

belong. But now, some researchers want that foundation of biology to change.

This ranked taxonomy is a foundation of biology. Every student learns it.

Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

Or you can remember it with funny phrases like,

didn't know Popeye's chicken offered free gizzard strips, or, Dear King Philip came over for great spaghetti.

But more and more researchers think it's time for taxonomy to move away from these ranks,

or even abandon them altogether.

Andreas Hainel is a comparative developmental biologist at the University of Bergen in Norway.

It's all very arbitrary how these animals are subdivided to this point.

And when a student has to learn it, it also suggests the student that there is something special about these groups.

But what is it? Nobody really understands this.

Hainol says the problem with the system is that the ranks don't mean anything specific or uniform

across all groups of life. Even though species is arguably the most important rank across

multiple fields of biology, there are dozens of species

concepts and use. And biologists working with different groups of organisms can't seem to agree

...