Spelling detection and correction in Taxonomic Databases

[Jacques Melot]

  Le 30/05/02, à 12:31 +0000, nous recevions de erast :

>F. Christian Thompson wrote:
>>  And when we tell then from experience that the only possible way to resolve
>>  this history of names is to re-examine the ORIGINAL literature, we are
>>  ignored as luddites.
>
>          For a nomenclatural database of World corticioid Hymenomycetes
>(Fungi), I examined the original literature during some 35 years.
>Unhappily, no PCs were available then; I had to wait until 1988
>when I began to pass the data from a card index (with photo-, xerox-
>& handwritten copies of original descriptions etc.) to a PC XT.
>However, nobody ignored my attempts, no grants were applied or given,
>but all my friends and colleagues (in Europe, Asia, Americas...) gave me great
>help. Now the database is available in WWW.
>         For good taxonomy of (most) fungi, knowledge of all World
>species is necessary. A database of names is something quite normal
>for this.
>
>>  Yes, there are short-cuts, such as registration systems which have been
>>  proposed in both zoology and botany, but so long as the scientific community
>>  rejects them...
>         Rejection of registration as well as of the idea of lists of
>taxa in current use is a curious phenomenon; only psychologists are
>possibly able to give the answer: QUI BONO?



     Justement, les naturalistes feraient mieux de rester des
humanistes plutôt que de devenir des techniciens étroitement
spécialisés (et fiers de l'être). Il y a de bonnes raisons, notamment
politiques, au refus de ces choses : l'enregistrement, dans les
conditions (scandaleuses) où il avait été proposé, et les noms en
usage courant, remplissant un rôle bien particulier en rapport avec
une certaine conception de la société et, plus encore, de l'économie !

    Jacques Melot



>      Erast Parmasto
>*****************
>Erast Parmasto
>Institute of Zoology & Botany
>181 Riia St.,  51014 Tartu, Estonia
>Tel 372-7-383 027   Fax 372 -7-383 013