[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Stephen,
        Good point.  A lot of these debates are the result of swinging
the pendulum too far one way or the other.  In the process, moderation
and eclectism gets overlooked.  Sounds sort of like the United States
Congress, where moderates almost never get media attention, while
non-moderates (on both sides) get almost all the media attention.   
        As for barcoding in particular, I believe it has great potential
as an identification tool, but that it could become counter-productive
if too loosely applied to species taxonomy across the board.  Therefore,
it could sometimes be misused, especially in the area of oversplitting
of populations as full species which are not otherwise warranted.  Not
that barcoding can't uncover undiscovered cryptic species which are
morphologically extremely similar, but there is still the problem that
some researchers will go far overboard on the oversplitting where it is
unwarranted.        
      So it seems advisable to develop the potential of barcoding as an
identification tool.  But we should also be careful that it not be
misused by some who are tempted to use its potential inappropriately and
splitting taxonomically where it is not carefully backed up by other
data.  The question is whether barcoding, or other molecular
initiatives, could be getting more than their fair share of funding at
the expense of more traditional morphological taxonomy!!!  If there is
only a limited funding pie avail, there are going to be squabbles over
how that pie is spent.        
         ----------Ken Kinman       
P.S.  Frankly I think that taxonomic pie is far too small compared to
that of astronomers in general.  Protecting Earth from possible asteroid
collisions is one thing, but a lot of astronomy spending would (in my
opinion) be better spent on preserving species on Earth.  NASA probably
wastes a lot on things with little benefit.  
        But then even that is probably minor compared to the billions
diverted into corporate welfare.  And most such large corporations seem
more concerned with excess profits (which are largely unearned) than
they are with their consumers or even their own employees (except for a
few of their excessively paid CEOs).  Corporations also seem to be
feeding the obscene salaries paid to major league sports figures and
also many Wall Streeters sitting on their butts playing computers with
other people's money (especially those at the top of that hierarchy).
Wealth trickles up, far more than it trickles down.  
     
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Stephen Thorpe wrote:  
     we shouldn't lose sight here of the actual criticisms of
barcoding: the criticism isn't that barcoding is good for nothing, nor
that taxonomy should stay rooted in the past, but rather that taxonomy
underpins barcoding and cladistics, etc., yet people seem to be losing
interest in this foundation, and yet somehow seem to think that we
should spend all our time and resources on barcoding, cladistics, or
whatever else is flavour of the day, and make taxonomy itself into a
dried up old museum specimen ...