[Taxacom] a biodiversity rant from me [Wheeler et al. 2012]

[J. Kirk Fitzhugh]

Stephen,

There are a number of statements in Wheeler et al. that don't stand up 
to scientific scrutiny. The conflation of species with individual 
organisms, and the continued misinformation regarding hypothesis testing 
are but a few of the profound problems with biodiversity rhetoric:

"The ultimate goal of the proposed mission is to know every species; to 
learn what makes each unique, from its anatomy to its genome, behaviour, 
ecological associations, geographic and seasonal distributions and 
phylogenetic relationships. While scientific names are essential, they 
are the beginning of knowledge, not its end. In the context of 
biological classifications, names uniquely reference species and are the 
foundation for biodiversity informatics. Because species are based on 
hypotheses, they must be periodically tested and improved or replaced."

On 3/28/2012 1:44 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> very interesting stuff Geoff! Many thanks!
> Â 
> Makes a mockery of citation metrics. The Costello et al. (2011) now has another citation to its "credit", even though it was 100% misquoted!!! It also suggests that few if any of the many authors of the Wheeler et al. (2012) article actually even read their own article, or the Costello article!!! Yet each of them will now get a "citation credit" every time that the Wheeler et al. (2012) article is cited ... this isn't science ...
> Â 
> Stephen
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Geoff Read<gread at actrix.gen.nz>
> To: Stephen Thorpe<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
> Cc: "TAXACOM@ MAILMAN. NHM. KU. EDU"<taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, 29 March 2012 9:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] a biodiversity rant from me [Wheeler et al. 2012]
>
> Others have investigated this common phenomenon - inappropriate citation.
> It is irritating when noticed - say when refereeing, but there's not much
> to be done about it post publication. More chance of such slipping through
> the checking system in groups of multiple citations.
>
> Todd, P. A.; Guest, J. R.; Lu, J.; Chou, L. M. 2010. One in four citations
> in marine biology papers is inappropriate. Marine Ecology Progress Series
> 408: 299-303
>
> Citing sources that do not support the assertion being made can misinform
> readers, perpetuate mistakes and deny credit to the researchers who should
> have been acknowledged. To quantify citation fidelity in marine biology,
> we retrieved 198 papers from 2 recent issues of 33 marine biology
> journals. From each paper we randomly selected 1 citation, recovered the
> source material, and evaluated its appropriateness. We discovered that the
> assertion was âEUR~clearly supportedâEUR^(TM) by the citation in only 75.8% of cases,
> the support was âEUR~ambiguousâEUR^(TM) in 10.6% of cases and the citation offered âEUR~no
> supportâEUR^(TM) to the original statement in 6.0% of cases. The remaining 7.6% of
> cases were classified as âEUR~emptyâEUR^(TM) (citations to secondary sources). We
> found no relationship between citation appropriateness and the position of
> the assertion in the paper, number of authors, number of references,
> article length and Journal Impact Factor. That 1 in 4 citations in marine
> biology should be viewed with scepticism is alarming and has important
> ramifications for both scholarship and bibliometrics
> Â Â Â  http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v408/p299-303/
>
>
> Geoff
>
> On Wed, March 28, 2012 3:46 pm, Stephen Thorpe wrote:
>> I am baffled at this new paper:
>> Â 
>> DOI:10.1080/14772000.2012.665095
>> Mapping the biosphere: exploring species to understand the origin,
>> organization and sustainability of biodiversity
>> Q. D. Wheeler, S. Knapp, D. W. Stevenson, J. Stevenson, S. D. Blum, B. M.
>> Boom, G. G. Borisy, J. L. Buizer, M. R. De Carvalho, A. Cibrian, M. J.
>> Donoghue, V. Doyle, E. M. Gerson, C. H. Graham, P. Graves, S. J. Graves,
>> R. P. Guralnick, A. L. Hamilton, J. Hanken, W. Law, D. L. Lipscomb, T. E.
>> Lovejoy, H. Miller, J. S. Miller, S. Naeem, M. J. Novacek, L. M. Page, N.
>> I. Platnick, H. Porter-Morgan, P. H. Raven, M. A. Solis, A. G. Valdecasas,
>> S. Van Der Leeuw, A. Vasco, N. Vermeulen, J. Vogel, R. L. Walls, E. O.
>> Wilson&  J. B. Woolley
>> Â 
>> specifically because of the following quote:
>> [quote]Given that we know fewer than one quarter of all eukaryote species
>> (Chapman, 2009; Costello et al., 2011; Mora et al., 2011), what are the
>> chances ...[unquote]
>> Â 
>> this gives the Costello et al. (2011) paper a citation (and is the only
>> mention of it), but for something that Costello et al. (2011)Â  DIDN"T
>> SAY!!! They said [quote]we predicted that 24-31% to 21-29% more marine and
>> terrestrial species remain to be discovered respectively[unquote], i.e. we
>> know about three quarters of all species!
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J. Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D.
Curator of Polychaetes
Invertebrate Zoology Section
Research&  Collections Branch
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
900 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90007
Phone: 213-763-3233
FAX: 213-746-2999
e-mail: kfitzhug at nhm.org
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/polychaetous-annelids
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~