[Taxacom] Morphological characters was New lizard species

[Barry Roth]

"Hatchet job" really mischaracterizes the posts that address the nomenclatural issues of the New Lizard authors.  Very early in this thread, Dr. Rosenberg correctly -- if I may continue in the vein of hand tool metaphor -- hit the nail on the head with regard to the nomenclatural shortcomings of the paper in question.  It astonishes me how the difference between a statement that "there are differences" and one that specifies the observed differences, seems to have been hard for some to grasp.  As a land snail specialist, I don't care very much whether lizard specialists have one, two, four, or twenty more species on their roster.  It might be interesting indeed to find out that the "action" in lizard speciation was in the genes, not in the gross morphology.  But it is of interest to me that taxonomic description gets done the right way.  (I still recommend the book "Describing Species" by Judith Winston to people who need a handbook.)  When the
 language of an argument verges on the intemperate -- as now in this thread -- it does not strengthen the speaker/writer's position.  On the contrary.
 
Barry Roth

--- On Tue, 6/8/10, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:


yes, but I am not the one trying to do a hatchet job on some new lizard names by insisting that their diagnosis does not comply with Article 13.1.1
[...]