[Taxacom] Dealing with database errors

Stephen Thorpe stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz
Sat Aug 25 03:07:27 CDT 2012 

I think you are mixing up too many issues. Think of it this way: things are trending towards phylogeny and molecular taxonomy, and away from old fashioned subjective taxonomy, precisely because people seem to think that these trends will result in better objective science that can be replicated and verified. So, let's give 'em that, for the sake of argument. Yet, when it comes to biodiversity databases, people seem to be fine about taking the word of "expert" taxonomists, without any supporting evidence! Perhaps because it is too much like hard work to verify data for oneself. But one consequence of this "mindset" is that once you uncritically accept "expert" opinion without supporting evidence, then you can never tell what is right from what is wrong, so if the quality of "expert opinion" slacks off in some cases, you will not notice. This is probably why nobody seems very concerned about huge areas of complete rubbish in CoL, etc. They just don't see
 it.  It is like a religion, i.e. if you "put your faith" in CoL, then "the word of God" is never wrong ...


Stephen



________________________________
 From: Dr Brian Taylor <dr.brian.taylor at ntlworld.com>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; Dean Pentcheff <pentcheff at gmail.com>; "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Saturday, 25 August 2012 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dealing with database errors
 
I wonder if there is not a misconception here.  What do you mean by
verifiability?  My classical (?) science education of the late 50's was that
a scientist should be able to replicate the experiment and get the same
results.  Hence the "Materials & Methods" section in papers.  Taxonomy,
however, is not like that.  First it is not experimental but simple
observation and description, even if DNA is involved.  Unless one can sight
the single holotype specimen of a species described up to 200 years ago
arguably cannot verify what the original author wrote about.  Even then
descriptions and specimens do not always tally.  The specimen may be lost,
damaged, swamped in ancient glue, or the labels may have been transposed by
some curator, someone making a  revisionary study etc.

With all the EOL type lists the off putting factor for potential
contributors seems to me to be the demands on time for very little kudos.
If people will not recognise the validity of web-based publications then why
bother?

Brian


On 24/08/2012 23:32, "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:

> There is a certain irony here, that when it comes to biodiversity databases,
> in many cases the fundamental principle of verifiability in science has
> seemingly been sidelined or indeed overlooked altogether in some cases ...
>  
> If ya can't verify it, ignore it ...
>  
> Stephen
> 
> From: Dean Pentcheff <pentcheff at gmail.com>
> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Sent: Saturday, 25 August 2012 8:58 AM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dealing with database errors
> 
> Though it's not yet applicable to the particular case being discussed
> here, the "Filtered Push" project is addressing this exact problem of
> propagating data corrections back to the source. See:
>   http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
> 
> -Dean
> --
> Dean Pentcheff
> pentcheff at gmail.com
> dpentche at nhm.org
> 
> On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 1:48 PM,  <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> wrote:
>> Hi David,
>> 
>> I agree there should be a "contact us" or "contact responsible editor"
>> button/link with any source of web-based taxonomic information. (Memo to
>> self: see how easy such a link is to find on my own site/s...). Most times
>> when I have used such a facility, the editors in question are pleased to have
>> errors notified to them so that they can be corrected at source (a separate
>> question is then the fate of the uncorrected copies still in circulation).
>> 
>> Meanwhile you will find the "name" "Ens Pilsbry 1911" included in the global
>> names index (GNI), aspiring to be the most complete aggregator of taxonomic
>> names, here:
>> http://gni.globalnames.org/name_strings?search_term=Ens+Pilsbry+1911
>> 
>> A couple of clicks will then get you to the source of this record in GNI
>> which is the uBio NameBank (a precursor of GNI, with a similar "aggregator"
>> role), which has the following record:
>> 
>> http://lsid.tdwg.org/summary/urn:lsid:ubio.org:namebank:5049753
>> 
>> and points to this as the data source:
>> 
>> http://starcentral.mbl.edu/microscope/portal.php?pagetitle=classification&BLC
>> HID=8-8384
>> 
>> This is a page on the micro*scope site where the name (first?) appears.
>> 
>> Micro*scope has a "contact us" page and also an email address
>> (microscope at mbl.edu) which maybe David Patterson can advise whether it is
>> still current - the micro*scope project appears to have ceased in 2006 but
>> maybe can still be updated (similarly with uBio I understand).
>> 
>> I think in this case an email to the data source/s as identified above would
>> be the best course of action, also possibly (and if time/enthusiasm permits)
>> to any other major parties who may also be displaying this name, provided
>> that you are sure it is erroneous.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> 
>> Tony Rees, Hobart
>> ________________________________________
>> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu]
>> On Behalf Of David Campbell [pleuronaia at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Saturday, 25 August 2012 2:03 AM
>> To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>> Subject: [Taxacom]  Dealing with database errors
>> 
>> Does anyone happen to know a good way to track down and correct the
>> source of an error appearing, without documentation, across multiple
>> taxonomic databases?
>> 
>> "Ens" is not a genus of Lymnaeidae (Gastropoda).  One database seemed
>> to attribute it to Pilsbry, 1911, which suggests that it is a
>> computer-generated error for Pectinidens, a valid name in Lymnaeidae.
>> 
>> In general, chasing down a "contact us" link in the existing databases
>> is not very easy.  Not that they should accept any suggested change
>> that comes along, either, but making it easy to alert about a problem
>> would greatly facilitate improvement.
>> 
>> --
>> Dr. David Campbell
>> Visiting Professor
>> Department of Natural Sciences
>> Gardner-Webb University
>> Boiling Springs NC 28017
>> 
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