[Taxacom] Phylogenetic classification?

[John Grehan]

Another deficiency with TOL seems to be their ability to make decisions
about contributions. I offered to contribute the orangutan-human
phylogeny, but they could not because they had to figure out some kind
of overall process for groups where many specialists were involved. Why
this should be a problem is beyond me, but it shows a major limitation
where groups are not updated because of an internal procedural problem.

John Grehan


-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Thorpe
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 11:40 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Phylogenetic classification?

I have to agree with Ken here - closed source websites/databases like
Tree of Life can never be kept up-to-date, and the reality is that the
information on them is only as reliable as the contributor. The latter
is also true of open source websites like Wikispecies, but it is far
easier to keep them up-to-date, as you "can just do it, there and then",
and it doesn't become a funding "black hole". Therefore, I strongly
suggest that we discourage the use of the rapidly growing legion of
closed source websites, and try instead to channel some of that wasted
funding back into primary taxonomic/systematic research...

Stephen

Quoting Kenneth Kinman <kennethkinman at webtv.net>:

> Richard Zander wrote:
>       The present Tree of Life project much in the news should 
> actually be named the Nested Parentheses of Life.
> ------------------------------------------------
> Hi Richard,
>        That's a good characterization of many of their trees.  :-)
>         However, in many other cases, I find the very opposite.  They 
> won't commit to any real phylogenetic topology at all, and just fall 
> back on a rather worthless polytomy (some of them being polytomies of 
> so many taxa, I wonder why they bothered with a tree at all).
>        Either way, I often find their trees over-nested in some cases,

> while others aren't nested at all, and either of these extremes can 
> frankly be disinformative or non-informative.  The frequency with 
> which many Tree of Life accounts are updated is also rather dismal.
:-(
>        I'm sure many of the contributors are pulling their weight, and

> contributing on a regular basis.  However, others are probably taking 
> the funding and not contributing much in return, and if the funding 
> agencies aren't monitoring their contributions properly, then such 
> "contributors" (to use the term loosely) probably aren't being prodded

> into doing so.  Both over-nesting and under-nesting seem to often be 
> symptoms of strict cladism, although I suspect many of the 
> under-nesters
> (polytomiers) probably tend to use it as an excuse to procrastinate or

> not commit to any topology at all.
>          ------Ken
> P.S.  Not that the Tree of Life doesn't have a lot of valuable 
> information and trees.  But many of the parts that I am most 
> interested in are frankly overly cladistic or worthless polytomies.  
> When they don't get updated for years at a time, you might as well go 
> to Wikipedia instead if you really want up-to-date information and 
> literature citations.
>
>
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