[Taxacom] [TAXACOM] Systematists as holists

[Bob Mesibov]

William, as yesterday's post from Paul van Rijckevorsel showed, I should
have had 'Code legalist' on my list, too.

I fully agree that taxonomy needs help. The mechanism I suggested
yesterday - training 'scratch' project teams of non-specialists - is a
top-down, hierarchical approach that suits the institutions
(universities and museums) where taxonomy is currently in decline. It's
a way to feed government or big-private funding into the taxonomic
process that no one would find uncomfortably new. It's a response to
Richard Pyle's belief that we need to loosen those metaphorical
purse-strings.

An alternative approach is bottom-up, cheap and far less organised. From
what you write, I'll bet you're familiar with the 'We Think' insights of
Charles Leadbetter:

http://www.wethinkthebook.net/home.aspx

Leadbetter is the first person I've read who clearly explains the
phenomenal change in work structure that the Web has enabled, although
others have pointed out the accompanying shift from 'library' to 'search
engine' in information management. There are so many good examples of We
Think (Linux/FOSS and Wikipedia are the monster instances) that I think
the argument was validated even before Leadbetter published his book.
He's not a visionary, he's a reporter.

Well, taxonomy has always been democratic, participatory, universal and
slightly anarchic, which are the hallmarks of a We Think enterprise.
It's Web-enabled, too, so what's holding it back?

IMHO, it's the social structure of the taxonomic community that's
holding it back. For reasons that have nothing to do with the subject
matter - life discovery and documentation - most taxonomists are career
people embedded in institutions, people who compete for resources both
within and outside (the drip-feed of research grants) those
institutions. For many taxonomists, the answer to 'What's to be done?'
is to train lots more professional taxonomists to take up newly created
places in those same institutions.

Probability of success? Nil. It would be a lot smarter to liberate
taxonomy from its institutional framework and get the bulk of its work
done in a distributed manner by part-time, non-career taxonomists, work
anchored by ZooBank and Doug Yanega's visionary website, and mentored
online by the dying generation of embedded professionals.

There's nothing stopping you from helping the cause in a distributed
taxonomic workforce.

Disclaimer: I'm biased. My digital world is Linux/FOSS-based, I work
from home with a broadband connection and I visit museums and an SEM
facility only when necessary.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
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