[Taxacom] source of quote about keys

[John Grehan]

The idea if not the quote has certainly been around for decades. When I
was first confronted with specialist keys I found them so obscure that I
first thought that this impenetrability was the purpose of a key!

John Grehan



> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Steve Marshall
> Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 8:07 AM
> To: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: [Taxacom] source of quote about keys
> 
> 
> Dear Taxacomers,
> 
> I'm looking for the original source of a choice quote describing keys
as
> "written by those who don't need them for those who can't use them".
I've
> used this line in my lectures since the early 1980s, and when I used
it in
> a talk at the 2002 International Congress of Dipterology I attributed
to
> "my old professor" (a nice way of saying I had no idea where I had
first
> heard it). Walter and Winterton, in their excellent 2007 review of
keys
> and the crisis in taxonomy, preface their introduction with the same
quote
> and attribute it to Lobanov, 2003. Packer et al 2009 also preface
their
> in-praise-of-barcoding paper in exactly the same way with exactly the
same
> quote, but credit Packer (2008) for the origin of the quote. I'm not
aware
> of any other usage of the line in print, nor am I aware of where it
> originated. It is possible that Lobanov, Packer, and I all came up
with
> the line independently, but it seems more probable that it has been
> circulating for decades. Can anybody help pinpoint the original
source?
> 
> Walter, D. E. and S. Winterton  2007. Keys and the Crisis in Taxonomy:
> Extinction or Reinvention? Annual Review of Entomology Vol. 52:
193-208
> 
> Lobanov, A.L. 2003. Keys to beetles and biological diagnostics.
> http://www.zin.ru/Animalia/Coleoptera/eng/syst8.htm
> 
> Packer, L., Gibbs, J., Sheffield, C., and R. Hanner 2009. DNA
barcoding
> and the mediocrity of morphology. Molecular Ecology Resources 9:42-50.
> 
> Packer, L. 2008. Phylogeny and classification of the Xeromelissinae
> (Hymenoptera: Apoidea, Colletidae) with special emphasis on the genus
> Chilicola. Systematic Entomology, 333, 72-96.
> 
> 
> Stephen A. Marshall
> Department of Environmental Biology
> University of Guelph
> Guelph, ON, CANADA N1G 2W1
> 
> 
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