cultural change

Fri May 31 11:47:52 CDT 2002

Greetings,

I support Doug Yanega's views about name registration, outlined
below. I believe his fears about people wanting to abuse the system
for money are valid. Moreover, I see people bashing the current
system we work with, often with poor knowledge of what is really
happening in the field, but still causing harm, I believe. I also saw
earlier this year an amateur who has started his own journal,
publishing new names, refusing peer review, and apparently not
considering the basic rules of the ICZN regarding publication
requirements. And I see that we are not reacting quickly enough, and
together, to important technological changes, therefore attracting
criticism from other segments of the scientific community.

A possible scenario: If sufficient numbers of taxonomists are in
favour, a name- (or journal-) registration scheme could be worked on
by the members of international commissions of nomenclature (or
others mandated by them) who would then apply to special funds to
UNESCO or other large public or private organization to implement the
scheme, insuring its long term viability.

It would be easy to provide a service by which the name registration
system would send messages automatically to any person requesting
them based on certain key words mentioned in the application, thereby
reaching all those interested quickly.

The fact that some taxonomists might not have easy access to the web
is possibly a problem, but how many people are we talking about,
really? In Lepidoptera systematics I don't know anyone who doesn't
have access to the web.

Cheers,

Bernard Landry
>
>>Most work on a relatively small group (a family or
>>set of genera) and it's fairly easy to learn these groups (that's what
>>Ph.D.'s get you).  To be a successful taxonomist you don't need to actively
>>contribute to the global picture, just your little corner of it.  And if
>>someone in another corner doesn't know about your work it doesn't really
>>matter:  the Codes say that anything published counts, no matter how obscure
>>the source.
>>
>>The solution to this problem will require at least two things: cultural
>>change and loss of freedom.  Our cultural practices will need to change
>>because we CANNOT continue to do things the way we've done them in the past
>>- it's just not working.  And we will be forced to give up some freedoms if
>>we really want to be a global community rather than a series of isolated
>>individuals working in our own little vacuums.
>
>I'm presuming (since you weren't explicit) that the cultural change
>you had in mind is electronic publication. I think this one is likely
>to be accommodated within the next decade (if only because
>taxonomists are going broke and can't afford page charges any more).
>I'm presuming that the freedom issue you're referring to is
>registration, and that's going to be a harder sell, though I'm one
>who believes it's absolutely necessary. To a taxonomist it may seem
>like an imposition, certainly, but to those of us who are forced to
>make use of classification, we desperately NEED to have unique
>identifying codes to refer to each named taxon - and having a
>standardized hierarchy would help, too. Just imagine trying to
>organize a library without having the Dewey Decimal System, ISBN
>numbers, or something like it. Well, that's what we have to deal with
>in *our* museums, and that's just not right.
>
>I'm even more of an extremist than that, as well, in that (as I've
>said here before) I feel that we need to take specific action
>regarding the point you make above: "the Codes say that anything
>published counts, no matter how obscure the source" - the total lack
>of provisions for peer review and accountability. I've already
>encountered, in my own institution, people talking about selling new
>taxon names at $1000 each to raise money (mercifully the idea was
>killed). Sure, it might seem harmless, but if the precedent is set
>and draws too much public attention, people outside the taxonomic
>community will discover that there's nothing to prevent anyone from
>*intentionally* creating and self-publishing new names for taxa that
>already have them. I believe that someone somewhere WILL make this
>logical leap (that creating bogus names is an easy way to get rich
>quick - all it really requires is some specimens, a little knowledge
>of the Code, and the ability to press CDs), and we'll all suffer when
>that happens. It's bad enough when people do it out of vanity or
>incompetence, but imagine how much worse it'd be if people stood to
>make real money by doing so. I still expect some joker to start
>auctioning off "new" names on eBay any day now - there are millions
>of suckers who would fall for it in a second, since they'd know
>absolutely nothing about what synonymy means (besides which, even a
>synonym effectively immortalizes you). To that end, let's combine all
>the preceding ideas into one:
>
>Let's imagine a website - maybe even the Tree of Life website or
>something similar, so everything is organized taxonomically - where
>every new taxon description or revision MUST be submitted and placed
>out for public review and commentary. This is how the patent office
>works, in essence, and even the principle of "patent pending" could
>apply here as well: i.e., the right to name a taxon is formally
>reserved by the earliest applicant - this would preclude complaints
>that a delay in publication of a name might result in getting
>"scooped." Every so often, works that earn final approval would be
>published formally (simultaneously in hardcopy or CD as well as
>online in PDF format, as desired) and any new taxa proposed would
>receive a permanent, unique identifying code at that time. The
>criteria for final approval would involve a combination of satisfying
>all pertinent ICxN provisions as to priority, diagnosis, type
>designation, etc., AND the passing of rigorous peer review by virtue
>of a mandatory public commentary period (making it public minimizes
>the effects of both the "nemesis" factor and, conversely, cronyism).
>To those who don't like this idea, consider this (following the "qui
>bono" comment): WHO WOULD IT HURT? Should we weep for the vain and
>incompetent? To those who claim it would make their publications miss
>their specialist audience - an audience that would normally be
>reached by specialist journals - I believe it would have the OPPOSITE
>effect, since every specialist in the world would know that they only
>had to visit that *one* website to find every single work regarding
>their taxa of interest. The only bad thing that might happen is the
>specialist journals might suffer, but even this would have its
>positive aspects.
>
>Done correctly, with a conscientious and objective editorial board,
>and a reliable source of funding (obviously), this approach would
>retain all the best aspects of the present system, and eliminate only
>those restrictions and loopholes which do (or could) represent
>genuine impediments to progress. I recognize that there would be one
>inherent limitation introduced this way, but it's essentially a
>trade-off for an *old* limitation: by having peer review accomplished
>by public commentary via the web, it would potentially exclude people
>with no computer access from the review process (though colleagues
>could certainly pass them printouts of the web pages to examine, and
>manuscripts could still be *submitted* the old-fashioned way, and
>scanned into PDF form for viewing). I'd argue that this would STILL
>be far better than the present system of peer review, where at most
>four people in the entire world (and sometimes zero) get to make
>comments before something is in print.
>
>I don't expect much support for my views, but - if there *are* people
>who agree - then why, exactly, are we still talking about it and not
>working to make something like this come to pass?
>--
>
>Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
>Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
>phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>            http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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