Editing Lumpers and splitters (section)

==Origin of the terms==
The earliest known use of these terms was thought to be [[Charles Darwin]], in a letter to [[Joseph Dalton Hooker]] in 1857: ''It is good to have hair-splitters & lumpers''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Darwin |first=Charles |publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project |title=Letter no. 2130 |date=1 August 1857 |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/DCP-LETT-2130 |access-date=10 July 2017}}</ref> But according to research done by the deputy director at [[National Center for Science Education|NCSE]], [[Glenn Branch]], the credit is due to naturalist [[Edward Newman (entomologist)|Edward Newman]] who wrote in 1845, "The time has arrived for discarding imaginary species, and the duty of doing this is as imperative as the admission of new ones when such are really discovered. The talents described under the respective names of 'hair-splitting' and 'lumping' are unquestionably yielding their power to the mightier power of Truth."<ref name="Branch">{{cite web |last=Branch |first=Glenn |title=Whence Lumpers and Splitters? |url=https://ncse.ngo/whence-lumpers-and-splitters |website=[[National Center for Science Education|NCSE]] |access-date=19 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231019234004/https://ncse.ngo/whence-lumpers-and-splitters |archive-date=19 October 2023 |date=December 2, 2014}}</ref>

They were then introduced more widely by [[George G. Simpson]] in his 1945 work ''The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals''. As he put it:
{{blockquote|... splitters make very small units – their critics say that if they can tell two animals apart, they place them in different genera ... and if they cannot tell them apart, they place them in different species. ... Lumpers make large units – their critics say that if a [[Carnivora|carnivore]] is neither a dog nor a bear, they call it a cat.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Simpson |first=George G. |title=The Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals |journal=Bulletin of the AMNH |volume=85 |page=23 |year=1945 |publisher=American Museum of Natural History |location=New York}}</ref>}}

A later use can be found in the title of a 1969 paper "On lumpers and splitters&nbsp;..." by the medical geneticist [[Victor McKusick]].<ref>{{cite journal |author=McKusick, V.A. |author-link=Victor McKusick |title=On lumpers and splitters, or the nosology of genetic disease |journal=Perspect. Biol. Med. |date=Winter 1969 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=298–312|doi=10.1353/pbm.1969.0039 |pmid=4304823 |s2cid=35339751}}</ref>

Reference to lumpers and splitters in the humanities appeared in a debate in 1975 between [[J. H. Hexter]] and [[John Edward Christopher Hill|Christopher Hill]], in the ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]''. It followed from Hexter's detailed review of Hill's book ''Change and Continuity in Seventeenth Century England'', in which Hill developed [[Max Weber]]'s argument that the rise of capitalism was facilitated by [[Calvinist]] Puritanism. Hexter objected to Hill's "mining" of sources to find evidence that supported his theories. Hexter argued that Hill plucked quotations from sources in a way that distorted their meaning. Hexter explained this as a mental habit that he called "lumping". According to him, "lumpers" rejected differences and chose to emphasize similarities. Any evidence that did not fit their arguments was ignored as aberrant. Splitters, by contrast, emphasised differences, and resisted simple schemes. While lumpers consistently tried to create coherent patterns, splitters preferred incoherent complexity.<ref>J.H. Hexter 'The Burden of Proof' ''TLS'' 3481 (October 24th, 1975) pp. 2–4.</ref><ref>C. Hill, 'The Burden of Proof' ''TLS'' 3843 (November 7th, 1975) p. 17.</ref><ref>R. Cobb and M. Heinemann 'The Burden of Proof' ''TLS'' 3844 (November 14th, 1975) p. 16.</ref><ref>J.H. Hexter and R. Hammersely 'The Burden of Proof' ''TLS'' 3846 (November 28th, 1975) pp. 19–20. See also the further articles in the ''TLS'' by R. McCaughey, P. Zagorin and F.M.L. Thompson.</ref>