any official terminology? Nomenclature versus Taxonomy

[Edwards, G.B.]

Martin,
I wouldn't disagree with anything you've said, but the problem still
remains, as Chris pointed out, of flagging the change.  If you have a
better suggestion than what seems to me a nice general indicator like
Revised Status, I would be happy to hear it.
Best wishes,
GB
-- 
G. B. Edwards, Ph.D.  [Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman] 
-- 
Curator: Arachnida (except Acari), Myriapoda, Terrestrial Crustacea,
Thysanoptera 
Florida State Collection of Arthropods, FDACS, Division of Plant
Industry 
P.O.Box 147100, 1911 SW 34th St., Gainesville, FL 32614-7100 USA 
(352) 372-3505 x194; fax (352) 334-0737; edwardg at doacs.state.fl.us 
http://www.fsca.entomology.museum/Arachnida/ArachnidaFrame.htm 

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin Spies [mailto:spies at zi.biologie.uni-muenchen.de] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:03 AM
To: Edwards, G.B.
Cc: TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: any official terminology? Nomenclature versus Taxonomy

Dear G.B.,

thanks for the clarification of what you were aiming for. However,

> ... the original combination is already valid ...
> I might disagree in principle with the concept that several
> valid combinations could be in existence simultaneously, since it
could
> be argued that the most recently published combination should be the
> valid one.
'Strictly' speaking, only the latter alternative can be correct. If 
definite but conflicting generic placements of a species remain 
disputed between workers for an extended period of time, then 
taxonomists, nomenclators and indexers all have a problem.

In any case, even if one looks at such matters with the eye of the 
taxonomist 'only', one ought to keep a clear distinction between the 
nomenclatural categories "available" and "valid". With reference to 
your above statements: if a species has been transferred, then the 
original combination is available but not valid; and, obviously, many 
combinations containing a given species epithet can be available, but 
only one can be valid at a given point in time - and, in my opinion, 
this pertains to both nomenclatural and taxonomic validity.

> But if that always was strictly followed, inadvertent
> changes would be made too many times by authors who were not aware of
> the most recent literature.
Those kinds of things happen all the time anyway, but they are no 
reason good enough to abandon attempts at precision in taxonomy, 
nomenclature, and their respective terminologies.

> I tend to agree that Revised Status is general enough that 
> it could be used as a flag in this instance.
As I wrote before, this may depend significantly on who will be 
reading the term you're using. Since it isn't possible any more to 
test what different readers of this thread would have understood by 
"stat. rev." without the influence of this discussion, I've put that 
question to the experienced colleague I'm sharing my office with, who 
hadn't read this TAXACOM thread. Well, his interpretation of "stat. 
rev." was quite plausible, as it was influenced by some knowledge of 
comparable Code concepts and terms. However, his (more or less 
'intuitive') interpretation decidedly was not identical to that 
suggested by Chris Thompson or the one sought by G.B. Edwards.

Thus, the bottom line is: There may be perfect taxonomic 'rather than' 
nomenclatural reasons to use terms like "stat. rev.", but somebody 
'official' better make sure such terms are first defined unambiguously 
and universally, or there will be more red flags going up than others 
leading to meaningful transmission of signals.

Regards,

-- 
Martin Spies
c/o Zoologische Staatssammlung Muenchen
Germany