[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Jason Mate]

> .....ultimately, all that 
> counts in most contexts is our ability to determine boundaries between 
> groups of interbreeding individuals. 
True. That is the process of taxonomy, and each group is named in the process and characterised so other reaserchers can identify individuals and avoid having to do the work again. But sometimes, due to new data, the definition needs to be refined. The difference is that in taxonomy the process is somehow standardized in each field whereas in molecular biology there is the naive hope that the new method will do away with the problems. Invariably it creates its own set of new problems. Neither side has the magic bullet. Of course in this day and age marketing is essential to get to the grants so each tries to dress their research in the best possible manner. And it is much easier to dress molecular biology, regardless of the merit in the work.

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. 
Yes, but it can only be identified if we use the same name. You may find this unimportant in your field but in agricultural entomology or ecology it can be a major source of confusion. If only we had an international standard for naming.
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). 
I think it is more cultural inertia. There are orthographical conventions that have changed yet I still write and speak the same way.
The 
> idea that we need names of higher taxa for comparative analyzes is 
> bogus, 
I find this statement confusing. Weren´t you talking about about species/genera?
Secondly, as fascinating as I find Drosophila, the truth is that it is one of the most researched group of organisms. Yet you still see continuous changes. Sorry but I still don´t see you ready to abandon binomials.
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.
This statement indicates provincialism to the utmost degree. Barcoding, ultimately, means that I don´t need to know anything about organisms. For all I know Musca domestica and Drosophila look the same (I am assuming that the proud owner of the ´DNA-tricorder´ knows something about entomology, a civvie may confuse a cricket with melanogaster). So into the tricorder they go. However which gene to sequence? You simplify at your own peril. The more people barcode the more obvious it becomes that no one single marker will suffice. So we will have to sequence an entire genome to get an I.D. because we don´t know what we have. Something as simple as Musca vs Drosophila dumbed-down to caveman science. But like much in life it is not what you do but how you do it that counts.
Best
Jason