[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

Thu Apr 21 01:00:48 CDT 2011

What I like about barcode: I can look at it.
What I do not like about taxonomy: I cannot look at species descriptions.

There are approximately 17,000 new species described and a multitude of
redescriptions. They are not only not available, because in print or
copyrighted but to a very little elite, but they are also in the wrong
format: In journals not as treatments.

In today's digital Internet world we do want to get to get to the item of
interest as straight as possible and in taxonomy those are the taxonomic
treatments of the taxa. But our community trots along as usual publishing
the same way we did since 1758 in Zoology, which was then the same that
Plato and others did a bit earlier. Few changed, such as Zookeys, or in fact
EOL or species-id that provide taxon-based access.
A taxonomic treatment is more than just verbatim that so many are happy to
read in pdf, one at once, shipped to you by a colleague by email (a bit
faster than the reprints ten years ago). It can be a document that is very
rich because it has live link to external resources; it could be formatted
in a way that machine could use it and reuse it for your particular purpose.
Unfortunately, it is not just the publisher, but the authors who do not want
to make their publication disseminated as widely as possible. Why else is
the overwhelming part of Zootaxa closed to the public?

The  taxonomists have not the product that is appealing to outside funding.
Rod page in his blog about the post-taxonomic age is right, the facts point
towards the irrelevance of taxonomy - in a time where it could have its
rival thanks to all what the digital revolution has to offer, and that is
not least open access. And is this not at the core of science: be able to
criticize. 
We can say that I do not believe in a BarCode, because you do not just have
the one but its context to work with. We cannot do this in taxonomy in
general, and that's part of the current tragedy why taxonomy does NOT
matter.

Donat

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 6:52 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

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.  

----------------------------------------------------------
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 ...

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