Can anyone state two advantages of using a scientific name to identify organisms?

1. it allows for scientists to distinguish one organism from another





2. it can also tell someone a lot about an organism (where it's from, what it does, etc)

Can anyone state two advantages of using a scientific name to identify organisms?
Using a scientific name to identify organisms has many advantages. It helps classify life into groups of subordinate to more comprehensive groups. This scheme of classification makes it easier to identify different organisms and other organisms they are similar with. By using a scientific name you could also tell a little bit about them ...for an example: yellow-headed blackbirds, whose scientific name is Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus, which literally means "yellow-headed, yellow head."





all in all, Scientific names are designed to tell you something about the animal's relationships with other animals. These names are also important because they allow people throughout the world to communicate unambiguously about animal species. Scientific names are often descriptive suggesting something about the animal.
Reply:Scientific names are unambiguous and universal. For example: buzzard. I'm a birder in the US - for me, a buzzard would either be a turkey vulture or black vulture. In the UK, a buzzard would be what I would call a hawk. What they call hawks in the UK, I would call an accipiter. And North American vultures have nothing to do with Old World vultures. We have blackbirds here in the US, but they're icterids (related to New World orioles); blackbirds in Europe are thrushes related to the North American robin, which is totally unrelated to the European robin (much less the even more distantly related Australian robins); and European orioles are unrelated to those found in the Western Hemisphere.





"Buzzard" can be misleading. "Cathartes" and "Buteo" are not.





You get the idea.
Reply:One advantage is that it cuts down on confusion. This happens in botany a lot, for example. What they call a plant in one place could be different from another area. If you use the proper "scientific" name, everyone knows what they're talking about. (Like, carnations are "dianthus"). Same thing with a disease, like German measles. Call it rubella and any doctor anywhere knows what you mean.


I can't think of a second advantage. It's really done for consistency.
Reply:I can think of one...


with a classification system an organism's name will not be subject to the different names placed upon it by other groups. So it gives it a uniform code...think of mountain lion and cougar...they are the same thing but it has only one scientific name.





Another might be...


It shows the relations that organism may have with other organisms...sort of like a family tree...
Reply:Latin names are often very long and difficult to learn. However once you've mastered it, if in a hurry you had to mention an organism to someone, using the Latin name would be much quicker than trying to describe it.





That's all I can think of - other than it makes you look smart =P
Reply:They are universal so when talking about an animal to a group of scientists in another country they will all know which one your talking about.