Question

Which of the following scientists has made a significant contribution in the field of classification?
A. Pasteur
B. Oparin
C. Darwin
D. Linnaeus

Answer 1

Hint: The scientist is popularly known as the father of taxonomy due to his scientific contribution for classification and nomenclature of organisms. Taxonomy deals with nomenclature and classification of various organisms existing in an environment.

Complete answer:
Each organism is classified accordingly in different respective taxonomic categories. The father of taxonomy is a title given to a scientist, named Carolus Linnaeus. He has given an artificial system of classification for the plants under different taxonomic categories. He gave binomial nomenclature for naming purpose, and according to this naming system, an organism has a scientific name consisting of a genus name and a specific epithet. The genus name starts with a capital, whereas the species name or specific epithet starts with a small letter. Both of these two names are printed in Italics, or underlined when handwritten. For example – the scientific name for mango is given by Linnaeus as Mangifera indica or Mangifera indica Linn. (scientist’s name can also be written to mark his contribution for the naming).
There are several ranks concerned with taxonomy, and these include kingdom, phylum (for animals)/ division (for plants), class, order, family, genus, and species. Species is considered as the lowest taxonomic rank for classification, whereas kingdom is considered as ‘highest’. Sometimes, domain is taken in consideration as well, and is placed in the highest position (that is above kingdom level).
However, Pasteur, Oparin and Darwin are known for their contributions in other fields of biology including microbiology, biochemistry and natural selection during evolutionary course, respectively.

Hence, the correct answer is (D).

Note:
Louis Pasteur developed the process of pasteurization, vaccines for rabies and anthrax, and proved that germs are causative agents of the diseases. Apart from the studies on origin of life, Alexander Oparin is also known for his contribution to biochemistry due to his significant efforts in the field enzymology and industrial biochemistry. Charles Robert Darwin is best known for his work regarding the origin of life by the means of theory of natural selection.