[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Kim van der Linde]

Let's play advocate of the devil.

Taxonomy is completely irrelevant. Why? Well, ultimately, all that 
counts in most contexts is our ability to determine boundaries between 
groups of interbreeding individuals. What name they have, ultimately, is 
irrelevant, a standardized English name would do equally well because 
the species can still be identified, conserved and talked about. This 
phenomenon is already observed in cases where taxonomists change names 
of species that are completely ignored by the community at large (for 
example Aedes aegypti) and in groups that have experienced frequent name 
changes to the point that the researchers of those species use only the 
common name of the species to find articles (for example Zebrafish). The 
idea that we need names of higher taxa for comparative analyzes is 
bogus, because as long as we have sequences of the individuals we work 
with, we can create a distance matrix and map changes in character 
states across them and determine how they have changed. In short, we can 
eliminate the whole field of taxonomy without much trouble for the rest 
of biology.

Cheers,

Kim

(Ducks and runs)

On 4/18/2011 4:48 AM, Fabian Haas wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> my apologies for the subject of this email, but I thing I have your
> attention. I am a taxonomist myself, and working a lot to make taxonomy
> matter on various plat forms, so no need to convince me about the
> importance of taxonomy.
>
> What I am trying to find out i , why we seemingly have not succeeded in
> gathering more support for taxonomy in the last 10 yrs or so? Although
> we have high political support for the CBD, a variety of interesting
> projects, like EOL and GBIF, and many other plat forms distributing
> taxonomic information. These success have little contributed -in my
> opinion- to improve funding for the production of taxonomic knowledge.
>
> Instead of lamenting again, and preaching to the converted, I would like
> to find out, why the donors dont seem to react, what are their reasons
> not to fund taxonomic work, at all, or at a level would be useful. So I
> am looking for their reasons, why they dont seem to receive our message
> that we need to taxonomy. And also why taxonomic aspects are often
> deleted form projects when money becomes tight, more often than other
> section. Taxonomy seems expensible.
>
> I do have some suspicions, like they dont know what it is, they simply
> dont like the topic, they think everything is known, they thing we dont
> need it anyways, its a public good and so available, taxonomy would be
> complete, etc.
>
> I will certainly try to talk the donors informally to find out what they
> think, but what I would like to ask this community, if you have any
> first hand experience, first hand statements on that. I will treat all
> information confidential if wished, and keep informant and, more
> importantly donor, anonymously. It is not about blaming someone, but I
> would like to better understand their perspective, with the ultimate
> goal to improve our communication strategy, and better address them. We
> did work a lot on our/taxonomist communication and I believe all the
> necessary answers are ready, collected by BioNET etc, but this change of
> perspective -ask the listeners why they dont listen- seems worth wile to me.
>
> So Why does Taxonomy NOT matter??
>
> Best&  Looking forward to hearing from you!
>
>    Fabian
>
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-- 
http://www.kimvdlinde.com