Undescribed species and the Internet

[Bill Shear]

On 5/20/02 6:34 PM, "Richard Pyle" <deepreef at BISHOPMUSEUM.ORG> wrote:


>
>> There are also unscrupulous people about who can, and will (it has
>> happened!), take your pictures and use them in their own revisions of a
>> group or groups.  If you are "scooped" by this process, then the names you
>> are about to propose can never be valid.
>
> I agree this is a real problem, but I see it as one that is relatively
> trivial in scale compared to the potential benefits of real-time data
> accessibility.  Problems of taxonomic "piracy" could be further mitigated by
> ensuring more robust negative professional consequences for those
> unscrupulous researchers who think they can improve their own legacy by
> stealing the discoveries of others.

Does anyone know of any recent cases of this kind of thing?  In more than 35
years in systematics, I have never encountered it, though warnings are often
uttered.

One of the things I have enjoyed about being in the systematics of Arachnida
and Diplopoda is the open exchange of information and material among
colleagues.  Nobody seems worried about this "piracy."

On the other hand, my experience in paleontology is that many practitioners
are almost paranoid about keeping their discoveries, ideas and specimens
secret for as long as possible.   The result is often egregious bloopers
which, had they consulted colleagues, could have been avoided.

Bill Shear
Department of Biology
Hampden-Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney VA 23943
(434)223-6172
FAX (434)223-6374
email<wshear at email.hsc.edu>
Moderating e-lists:
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http://www.fmnh.org/research_collections/zoology/zoo_sites/millipeet/home.ht
ml
SHAPE OF LIFE website at
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/shapeoflife/episodes/conq_explo1.html

"The old naturalists were so sensitive and sympathetic to nature that they
could be surprised by the ordinary events of life.  It was an incessant
miracle to them, and therefore gorgons and flying dragons were not
incredible to them.  The greatests and saddest defect is not credulity, but
our habitual forgetfulness that our science is ignorance."
Henry David Thoreau, Journals, March 5, 1860.