[Taxacom] Read... and believe...

Sat Sep 5 03:19:09 CDT 2009

Tony,
Actually, I think the problem is that taxa, especially species, very often have no "taxon concepts" at all associated with them, and at any rate such concepts aren't often involved in the process of identification! At least I don't identify insects by checking that they have every character (and no other) attributed to them in a description (original or redescription), nor do I often use keys if I can avoid them! Identifications typically just don't work like that in practice. Actually, we are conflating two quite different aspects to identification:
(1) recognising the same taxon twice; and
(2) putting a name to it [=identification sensu stricto]
Neither of these things need involve a "taxon concept" of a specifiable determinate kind! Both of these things are HUGE topics!
Reflect a little on how you identify common domestic pets. A 4 year old can probably tell a cat from a dog easily enough. I think that they, and I, identify things by seeing the morphological gaps and learning (from one or a complex mixture of sources) which name applies on either side of the gap. Whatever is going on certainly doesn't involve lists of characters defining what a cat or dog is!
Cheers,
Stephen

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au [Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2009 6:32 p.m.
To: jim.croft at gmail.com; fwelter at gwdg.de
Cc: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Read... and believe...

Hi Jim, all,

Well I think it might be good to look at this issue from a couple of other angles. First, how many taxa have a variety of "taxon concepts" as oppose to just one (proabably a minority); second, without a reference specimen (or taxonomic grade photo or drawing) for restrospective checking, all reported observations are unguaranteed in terms of accuracy (of both ID, colletion locality, date-time, and possibly more); the question is then, when does this matter. Which is probably some permutation of (a) are there other species close enough to be liable to be confused with the one reported, and (b) how crucial is the observation (e.g. a range extension or something else of potential novel interest). If it is the latter, then probably corroborative evidence such as a new visit are required; at least the report would then be a prompt that closer re-inspection may be useful. The bird atlas folk have this down to a fine art; reports of easly-to-identify species in expected aeas are gen
 erally accepted, hard-to-identify ones or range / seasonal extensions require expert confirmation before they are added to the atlas. Not too hard, I would say... In any case, isolated outliers / vagrants are of little weight until confirmed with additional data, or if they cannot be confirmed, may always be suspect. We live in an imperfect world; how much perfection is required? (Answer depends on your particular requirement, no doubt).

- Tony

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Croft [jim.croft at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2009 4:12 PM
To: fwelter at gwdg.de
Cc: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Read... and believe...

Thanks Francisco - you have perfectly described the problem we are
dealing with.  The way we do business at the moment, we have no way of
knowing what was going on in a taxonomists mind when they applied a
name to a specimen.   While not entirely meaningless, this makes it
very difficult to compare and link the identification assertions of
one taxonomist with another, or, the same taxonomist identifying
specimens at different times.

Most taxonomists (unfortunately, not all :) taxonomist don't just make
it up as they go when it comes to identification.  They carry around a
mind map based on their knowledge of the prevailing literature, use an
identification tool that is based on some preferred selection of the
prevailing literature, or use an existing comparative collection in
some preferred arrangement based on a preferred selection of the
prevailing literature.   If we know which of these was in their mind
when they make the identification we can circunscribe teh concept with
a bit more precision.

The moment you place your name on an identification you have made a
decision that the specimen fits within a particular taxon concept, one
of the many with the same name that are floating around in you mind to
chose from.  Our problem is that, based on the information provided,
we do not know which one you chose and we are left to make an informed
guess on which would have been the most likely, given what we might
know or assume of your experience or preference.  It could be argued
that this is our problem, not yours, but with communication, if there
is a problem, it is a problem for both sides.

Unless we can somehow document and map available concepts used in
identification assertions, any coupling we might make between
asserytions can only be loose.  It is an interesting challenge for us.

Concepts do not have to be published.  They can, and often are,
described over a cup of coffee or a beer.  These one's we are just
going to have to leave alone for a while... :)

jim

On Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 3:59 PM, Francisco
Welter-Schultes<fwelter at gwdg.de> wrote:
> Rich,
> When I identify a specimen, I tend to use various sources and build
> up my mind myself, I don't "follow" one single other source. I
> also would expect other scientists to do the same. A scientist must
> be able to have an independent opinion, as the result of having
> studied various sources. I could not apply this "sec." concept
> (taxonomic concept proposed by N. Franz, Roger Hyam and others) for
> my field (malacology). If I identify specimens from museum
> collections, I add my name and a date.
>
>> (or if it's a new circumscription, then they should at
>> least make a note of "sensu me, not yet published").
> In European malacology we have the case of the genus Oxychilus
> (Gastropoda), which was very well defined by Riedel 1998, based on
> a lot of scientific work, and which was distorted (several
> arbitrarily selected subgenera were elevated to genera) in a simple
> uncommented Central European checklist by Falkner et al. 2001. I am
> asking myself if you would call this a published concept (that
> deserves a "sec." authorship). Maybe yes. But the other (not
> Central European) species were of course not listed. So a name of a S
> European species is "implicitely" sec. Falkner et al. 2001? In
> real life people take the current generic name of S European
> species from www.faunaeur.org, they don't ask where the data were
> based on.
>
> Francisco
>
>
> University of Goettingen, Germany
> www.animalbase.org
>
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--
_________________
Jim Croft ~ jim.croft at gmail.com ~ +61-2-62509499 ~
http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.croft
... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
... 'All is leaf' ('Alles ist Blatt') - Goethe

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