[Taxacom] molecular species description

[Stephen Thorpe]

Hi Geoff,
I don't actually know anything about you, except that you are based in  
Wellington, N.Z., and Trewick is based at Victoria University,  
Wellington, so you and he could well be friends and/or colleagues, for  
all I know, which is fine, but worth noting. Far from being  
defamatory, someone who publishes scientific papers must allow those  
papers to be open to criticism, or else science becomes dogmatic  
dictatorship. My point was that if a fellow MOLECULAR taxonomist on  
the same group rates his work (the paper in question) poorly, then  
that is even more telling than just anti-molecular people slagging it  
off. Just empty words without factual basis? I'm not sure whose words  
you mean - mine or the molecular taxonomist I was referring to? If you  
mean mine, well I don't see anything wrong with my stating a fact that  
someone who is a molecular taxonomist had very negative things to say  
about Trewick's paper. I could be lying, for all you know, but you can  
take it or leave it, depending on how reliable and honest you think I  
am. Note also that this person did have a putative reasoned argument  
why Trewick's paper was so bad. All I remember is something to do with  
his results being unrepeatable due to a problem with the original  
aliquots, coupled with Trewick's possibly not so great understanding  
of zoological nomenclature, leading to a situation whereby nobody can  
tell which of his new names apply to what species, or if they are even  
validly proposed names. I admit that there may be some "politics"  
involved. There are two camps: the molecular taxonomists and their  
more "traditional" opponents. Even within the molecular camp, I am  
told that there are two factions (Wellington based, and Auckland  
based) who don't exactly work together in perfect harmony. To  
Trewick's credit, he did at least publish SOMETHING on N.Z.  
Onychophora, rather than just keeping it indefinitely on the back  
burner, and repeating slogans like "incomplete taxonomy is bad  
taxonomy!", a slogan possibly taken from architects of other long  
promised but not delivered revisions (e.g. Raoulia)! Anyway, the real  
point of this example is that what was cutting edge "molecular"  
taxonomy in 1998 hasn't stood up to the test of time, which is one  
thing to be borne in mind about jumping on to the latest bandwagons.  
As for your point about peer review, that is a whole can of worms in  
itself, laced with "politics" again, but I wont go there just now...
Cheers,
Stephen

Quoting Geoff Read <gread at actrix.gen.nz>:

> Stephen Thorpe <s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> 08/07/09 9:43 PM wrote:
> "Sounds a bit "dodgy" to me! Anyway, without naming names, I heard a
> VERY negative critique of his work on this from someone who is a
> MOLECULAR taxonomist on these critters!"
>
> ====
>
> That's hearsay, and very probably defamatory. It's easy to glibly dash off
> a comment like that, but it's just empty words without factual basis. This
> person simply continued his work with the benefit of a better method.
> It's published and peer reviewed. End of story until the next person
> tackles the 'are they species or not' problem (which looks complex).
>
> Geoff
>
> --
> Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
> Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
> gread at actrix.gen.nz
>
> --
> Geoffrey B. Read, Ph.D.
> Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
> gread at actrix.gen.nz
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either  
> of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as:   
> site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
>



----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.