[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Stephen Thorpe]

Bob,
I'm not sure what to say in reply to that, except to clarify what I was saying. 
The bit you quote me as saying was in reply to someone who was claiming that 
projects were evaluated on other grounds. However, there is a bit of a point 
here that you might, rather surprisingly, be missing: let us distinguish 
taxonomy from systematics. They are different things, but they are closely 
connected. To simplify, taxonomy is descriptive. Systematics is more 
"scientific". Systematics needs taxonomy to provide it with things to work on. 
Pure descriptive taxonomy is worth doing if systematics, conservation, etc., 
are worth doing. Progress in taxonomy is measured inversely to the proportion of 
undescribed taxa in collections (or in the field). The basic problem, as I see 
it, is that taxonomy is being increasingly devalued in favour of the next step - 
systematics. But taxonomists just need to keep on doing what they have been 
doing for centuries, and describe and name new taxa, hopefully rendering them 
recognisable. Yes, there is an interplay here with systematics, so as to make 
sure that new taxa are described in the appropriate higher taxon (genus, tribe, 
family, ...), but the problem is that nobody new coming on the scene wants to 
progress the taxonomy much, because there is increasingly less funding and 
promotion opportunities for doing such a "dull and unscientific" (to some) job. 
It is the taxonomy component falling out of the equation that is the problem, 
not the innovation of new tools for systematics per se. The new tools are great 
for systematics, for the reasons you state below, but who is going to do the 
taxonomy after you and your generation have passed on?? I really don't see the 
point in knowing that family F is paraphyletic w.r.t. family G, if nobody is 
ever going to describe and name all the species in F and G! It would be somewhat 
like fitting all the pieces together of a blank jigsaw!
Stephen




________________________________
From: Bob Mesibov <mesibov at southcom.com.au>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Cc: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Sat, 23 April, 2011 2:47:41 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

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
Ph: (03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Webpage: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/?articleID=570