[Taxacom] Reproducibility of descriptive data

[Stephen Thorpe]

>used this way, the type has no special meaning in circumscription of taxa that are known from more than a single specimen
Except, of course that the type MUST lie within any circumscription of the species, and it "defines" the species in the sense of "anchoring the name"
Anybody who identifies a specimen has, in some sense, a circumscription in mind, even Brown identifying a specimen purely by comparison to the type in my earlier example, but it is HIS OWN "mental circumscription" at the time of identification, and may not have "sharp edges" (so, show Brown another specimen, less typical, and he might not be able to decide if it is conspecific or not)

Stephen
________________________________________
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: Tuesday, 15 September 2009 1:38 p.m.
To: Don.Colless at csiro.au
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Reproducibility of descriptive data

Agree fully.  'Circumscribe' is my favourite in this regard.  It
implies a 'drawing around' of a pile of specimens, a bunch species, a
clump of genera, etc.; it announces a concept in graphic abstraction.
And the circumscription (of the concept) can be expressed as a
narrative description, a pile of included specimens, a list diagnostic
character combinations, etc., depending on context and preference.

(used this way, the type has no special meaning in circumscription of
taxa that are known from more than a single specimen.)

I like 'circumscribe' because the notion of human interpretation and
'concept' and possible alternative point of view is explicit in the
use of the term.

jim

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 5:09 PM,  <Don.Colless at csiro.au> wrote:
> I do wish ordinary people (like us) would give up using the mediaeval-scholastic term"define" for something less rigid; e.g., "circumscribe" or "explain" or whatever! We can leave "define" for the philosophers, for whom it is a genuine term of art.
>
> Donald H. Colless
> CSIRO Div of Entomology
> GPO Box 1700
> Canberra 2601
> don.colless at csiro.au
> tuz li munz est miens envirun
>
> ________________________________________
> 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: 10 September 2009 07:46
> To: Stephen Thorpe
> Cc: TAXACOM; Mike Dallwitz
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Reproducibility of descriptive data
>
> Don't buy this.  At all.  And I do not think the codes do either.  Nor
> many/most taxonomists.   The type does not define the species (which
> are in nearly every case variable).  It is an exemplar (not always
> 'typical' in the English sense) which anchors the name.  The extreme
> example of this are species that have multiple synonymic types.  In a
> type-defined species, concepts of lumping and splitting have no
> meaning - yet we all do it.
>
> Have a chat to Pete deVries.  He would argue that a species knows what
> a species is and does not care what we call it or think it is.  Humans
> develop a concept of what we think it is, sometimes (maybe even often)
> a reasonably good approximation of what a species knows it is.  And we
> give a name to this human concept a name.
>
> There are three things: a species entity, a species concept and
> species name.  The first is defined by biology and evolution, the
> second by humans, and the third is defined by the code and selected by
> humans.
>
> The problem we have, and why taxacom exists at all, is someone utters
> the third, a listener assumes the first, without considering the
> second, of which there are often several alternatives.
>
> jim
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Stephen Thorpe<s.thorpe at auckland.ac.nz> wrote:
>> [Mike Dallwitz wrote] _Whatever_ we want to say about a taxon (e.g. what its boundaries, distribution, abundance, or uses are), we need to define the
>> taxon that we want to talk about. And the only way to do that is to describe it in a reproducible way, so that people can identify individuals as belonging or not belonging to the taxon
>>
>> [reply] Species are defined by their name-bearing types (holotypes or lectotypes or neotypes or syntypes). A description of a species is a circumscription of its boundaries, according to the describer. So, we don't describe a taxon in order to define it so that we can then talk about boundaries. Rather, by describing it, we ARE talking about its boundaries, but the species is defined by its type.
>>
>>>describe it in a reproducible way, so that people can identify individuals as belonging or not belonging to the taxon
>> No, describing it in a reproducible way only allows people to identify individuals as being within or else outside the boundaries of the species as circumscribed in the description. These boundaries could be wrong, so the description is certainly not a DEFINITION of the species (definitions are true by definition and cannot be wrong!)
>>
>> What you say applies more to genera and other "subjective" taxa, but not to species, which are objectively defined once a type is designated...
>>
>> Stephen
>>
> --
> _________________
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> ... in pursuit of the meaning of leaf ...
> ... 'All is leaf' ('Alles ist Blatt') - Goethe
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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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