[Taxacom] Why Taxonomy does NOT matter

[Bob Mesibov]

"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."

I admit it, I lifted your point out of its context, because I thought what you were saying was undeniably true!

But I have to disagree (a little) with you about taxonomy vs systematics. I joined the two when rewriting the SASB website (http://www.sasb.org.au/overview.html) because it's obvious that 'in the real world...the same people often do both taxonomy and phylogenetic analysis. These scientists are best called systematists.' You could imagine it this way: there are people who do taxonomy as you describe it, people who do phylogenetics exclusively, and the overlap group who do both. Then you could try to work out what proportion of the world's active community are in each set. I think you'd come unstuck because individual people move in and out of these sets from year to year and project to project.

In my experience the funding is also fairly fluid at the institututional or departmental level: money supports both 'taxonomy' and 'systematics'. The biggest difference is undoubtedly where you say it is, namely that individual taxonomists don't get the money that individual systematists do. But can I suggest that there's a compensating factor? <wild generalisation>Systematics projects tend to be short-lived and people in them wander off to do other things. Taxonomic projects tend to be long-lived (decades!) and people doing them are loyal to the work, regardless of funding. </wild generalisation>.
-- 
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