[Taxacom] FW: Do rogue taxonomists need rogue publishers?

[Simon Tillier]

Clearly a degree and a position are neither necessary nor sufficient as a guarantee to good quality
scientific production (even though people having both degrees and a position in taxonomy, including
myself, prefer to believe that degrees and scientific quality are positively correlated).
Considering taxonomic production of which I suppose we all agree that it is not sufficient, we have
no real choice: in 2003 or 2004 Bouchet et al (unfortunately not published yet, I think), showed
within the Fauna Europaea project that more than 50% of species new to science from Europe are
described by non-professionals. In these conditions, our problem is not to make a distinction
between professionals and non-professionals, but to raise both the quantity and quality of taxonomic
production as high as we can, whoever the producers are. 

Simon Tillier
EDIT

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] De la part de
> mivie at montana.edu
> Envoye : mardi 2 fevrier 2010 17:09
> A : Frederick W. Schueler
> Cc : taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Objet : Re: [Taxacom] FW: Do rogue taxonomists need rogue publishers?
> 
> I was always taught that a professional receives a salary for doing what
> she does, and an amateur does it for love of the activity, deriving no
> monetary gain from it.  Thus Darwin was an amateur and Wallace a
> professional.  These titles do not indicate who is better and who is
> worse, just source of income.
> 
> In Coleoptera systematics, there are many excellent, well respected
> amateurs and a few truly bad professionals.  I can say that in the
> Coleopterists Society there are no distinctions in level of respect within
> the members between amateur and professionals, just how good they are.
> The late Karl Stephan had no degree, never had a job as an entomologist,
> and was respected and beloved to the very highest levels of the community
> as a full colleague.  He was universally acknowledged as among the best.
> 
> Stephen, the Coleopterists Bulletin, Annals of the Entomological Society
> of America, Entomological News, Canadian Entomologist, and Pan-Pacific
> Entomologist publish peer-reviewed work on NZ Carabidae.  Submissions
> welcome.
> 
> Mike Ivie
> 
> 
> 
> > Robin Leech wrote:
> >> Question.  Does a professional have to have degrees, or can a
> >> professional
> >> be someone recognized by experts in the field as being another expert?
> >
> > * another question: can scientists really be professionals (bound by a
> > collective code of occupational restrictions on the kind of phenomena
> > they'll consider), or must they all be amateurs (motivated by the love
> > for Truth, their field of phenomena, or their organisms)?
> >
> > And if a degree (presumably the Ph.D.) confers professional status,
> > what's that profession other than amateurism, since philosophy is
> > denominated as the love of truth?
> >
> > fred.
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
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> > Thirty Years Later Expedition - http://pinicola.ca/thirty/
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> > Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
> >      RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
> >    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
> >     (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
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