[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Bob Mesibov]

Stephen, you made an interesting point when you said

"So, I put it to you all that, in practice, the value of a project is largely determined by the methodology used ... "

I wonder if this has changed much over the years in science. When microscopes made the big time in the 1800s, journals of microscopy popped up and all good journals had to find ways to reproduce the very complex illustrations the micro-anatomists were turning out. Microscopists trained in the black arts of sectioning and staining grabbed important positions at universities, ones that 'traditional' anatomists working with scalpels had previously filled. With a little effort I'm sure you can find microanatomy-based publications from (say) 1870-1890 which controversially overturned macroanatomy-based views on evolutionary relationships. Sound familiar?

My point is that not only does new methodology <cliche>address previously unanswerable biological questions and generate new ones</cliche>, i.e. has great scientific value, but it also generates academic prestige, better funding, etc., because of that scientific value. In any case, what we see of the <cliche>DNA revolution</cliche> in taxonomy and systematics is only small beer compared to the corresponding research volume and expenditure in other areas (medicine, forensics, public health, etc).

Systematists look at sequences and genome arrangements as sources of new characters, i.e. they think traditionally but use novel data. If I wanted to put money on research that will really revolutionise taxonomy and systematics, that would have to be evo-devo, which in a methodological sense is still in its infancy.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
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