[Taxacom] ICZN position on Darwinius

[Jim Croft]

We know...  :)   but probably less than half of it...

I have not had such a great time watching a piece of nomenclature
unfold for a long time...  and on the international public media,
which is probbly really great for taxonomy...   a whole bunch of peole
now know about taxonomy and that 'taxonomy happens' (in both
senses)...  getting the Henry Gee T-shirt made: "Ah, I love the smell
of nomenclature in the morning!"

How they could orchestrate, contrive and hype such a thing to the
extent they did and then completely stuff up something as fundamental
as valid publication of the name just beggars belief.  "The 'Rosetta
Stone' of our science', sorry about the scientific name that doen't
exist, just call it Ida".     Schadenfreude is indeed a beautiful
thing...  :)

If there is a lesson to be learned here, if (or should we say 'when')
botany goes to electronic publication, perhaps a jump straight into
'electronic only' might be a good thing to consider, rather than a
foot in both camps transition.  (can't believe I just wrote that...)

Electronic publication is indeed taxonomy's brave potential 'shark
jump' moment.  If we don't do it properly and keep doing this sort of
thing, our audiences (taxonomists and the public) will likely just
walk away.

jim

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 10:06 AM, Richard Pyle
<deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> wrote:
>
> I've probably typed more keystrokes concerning this issue during the past 24
> hours than I did for all of my PhD Dissertation....
>



-- 
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"Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
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"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said,
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