[Taxacom] article on taxonomy - Boero comments

Sat Feb 27 03:37:14 CST 2010

Fernando Boero has posted twice to Taxacom but his posts were rejected for some reason. Here is the one I responded to, followed by his second:

"dear Bob
thanks for the appreciation. I have something to say, though. 
In order to describe new species, I need a HUGE library, and I informatized mine. Just the Hydrozoa are covered by more than 18.000 articles and monographs, and they are in a database in my computer, connected with the pdf files. My library is in my computer. I built this tool with a grant from the National Science Foundation, and I am paying a person to keep it updated. If I describe a new species, I have to know the literature vary well, and no amateur has access to huge libraries, unless s/he is very rich or lives in the vicinity of an important museum. 
And then, amateurs work just with the nice stuff. There are no amateurs who work on intestinal parasites. 
Taxonomists must receive money to do their stuff. If we want to explore the depths of the ocean we need submersibles. Expeditions cost a lot. Or should we sit in our little rooms and wait somebody to bring us little corpses in little vials to inspect?
I fully agree that we have to stop reproducing, as humans, but we should reproduce A LOT, as taxonomists. This is a full time job, it requires lots of skills, and I am not happy of a future in which taxonomists will just be butterfly collectors (or shell collectors). I know no jellyfish collectors, though. And I study jellyfish. 
We must get research money, and positions. Why not? What's wrong with it? The people who get big funding and prestige positions are not taxonomists, they are the ones who use the work of the naive taxonomists, who work for free, hoping to save the world with their hobby. The big projects on taxonomy are not managed by taxonomists, I list some of them, you can have a longer list attached here. These people ask for money to provide services for taxonomists, but there is not a single project on practiced taxonomy, taxonomists are supposed to work for free. What you are asking for is what is happening right now. Professional taxonomists are retiring, or they are confined in museums. No taxonomy in university curricula, no young people in our field. Biodiversity money is taken by non-taxonomists who use the work of taxonomists who are happy to work for free, or who have taxonomy as a hobby. 
The main fault of the disappearance of taxonomy is ours! 
I have received many messages, and some say just this: why asking for money? we have our salary! 
We need money to:
collect specimens
store them while we are studying them
buy or maintain microscopes, from light to scanning electron microscopes
implement libraries and hopefully digitize them
set up molecular labs to help identification ALSO with these tools
of course computers, expensive software
travel money to go to meetings (I am organizing the seventh workshop of the Hydrozoan Society here in Lecce, taxonomists will gather here for two weeks, working and discussing together, they will come from all over the world)
money to pay technicians
money to support students

I can spend millions of any currency every year, or I can encyst and go through the corpses in my collection, at zero expenses. But I do not want taxonomy to encyst, I would like it to flourish, acquiring the same dignity of all other sciences, not being a science for amateurs. 

I am caressing the idea of contacting all societies that gather taxonomists. Besides the Hydrozoa, also the Polychaetes will gather here in Lecce this year. Every taxonomic group has its own little society. We should make a list, and then a federation. 
I have the name: Biodiversity is Us (BIU). And then we must act as a lobby, so to unmask the people who are selling our work for very high prices, trying to gather resources for real taxonomy. My problem is that I like jellyfish too much, and I have too much fun with them, I am not so eager in becoming a lobbyist. But this is why we are disappearing.... we have fun. I am a professional amateur. What's wrong if your hobby becomes your job, Bob? 
nando
Ferdinando Boero 
DiSTeBA 
Universita' del Salento 
73100 Lecce 
Italy 

Handphone:+39 3332144956 
Voice: +39 0832 298619 
Fax:+39 0832 298702 
Home: +39 0832 316758 
email: boero at unisalento.it 

VISIT 
Phialella zappai: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/natphen.html 
AQUATIC BIOLOGY: http://www.int-res.com/journals/ab/ab-home/ 
AQUATIC INVASIONS: http://www.aquaticinvasions.net/ 
CAHIERS DE BIOLOGIE MARINE: http://www.sb-roscoff.fr/CBM/ 
ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/11250003.asp
CIESM: http://www.ciesm.org/ 
FACULTY OF 1000: http://f1000biology.com/about/biography/5244821872453101"

"From: ferdinando boero <boero at unisalento.it>
To: Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, vincenma at muohio.edu
Subject: cheapnis
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:29:33 +0100
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1077)

dear Bob
I strongly disagree. Why we will never get big money to do taxonomy? There is big money already for taxonomy, and it is stolen by people who use taxonomists who work for free. Biodiversity funding should go to taxonomy. It is not a dream, it is a possibility. If we do not care, we will become less and less relevant, and will act as the Salvation Army. 
By the way, I answered to taxacom, but my message was refused. So, please circulate it otherwise taxacomers see only your answer to my message and do not understand.
If we do not realize the importance of what we are doing, we will lose our battle. 
Economists say that the value (they confuse value with price, I know) of something is linked to the willingness to pay for it. If the willingness is zero, then the value is zero. Of course, if something very important is usually almost free (e.g. water) then people are not eager to pay. We find it reasonable to pay for oil but would not like much to pay as much for water. But we cannot survive without water, whereas we survived some million year without oil. Now taxonomy is like water. Cheap. But it is becoming scarcer and scarcer. 
I do not like the idea that our science is cheap! Not at all.
because it is not, if done at a certain level.
all the best
nando
Ferdinando Boero 
DiSTeBA 
Universita' del Salento 
73100 Lecce 
Italy 

Handphone:+39 3332144956 
Voice: +39 0832 298619 
Fax:+39 0832 298702 
Home: +39 0832 316758 
email: boero at unisalento.it 

VISIT 
Phialella zappai: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andymurkin/Resources/MusicRes/ZapRes/natphen.html 
AQUATIC BIOLOGY: http://www.int-res.com/journals/ab/ab-home/ 
AQUATIC INVASIONS: http://www.aquaticinvasions.net/ 
CAHIERS DE BIOLOGIE MARINE: http://www.sb-roscoff.fr/CBM/ 
ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/11250003.asp
CIESM: http://www.ciesm.org/ 
FACULTY OF 1000: http://f1000biology.com/about/biography/5244821872453101"

-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html