[Taxacom] Is the Company "YourSpecies" in Barcelona for real or ahoax?

[Ashley Nicholas]

I don't disagree with anything that has been said below. I require my postgrad students and myself to support any new "species" description with empirical evidence. See our publication of Pachycarpus acidostelma. I do not advocate guessing as a means of establishing new species. The analyses we give are based on all the specimens we cite with the protologue. These specimens (exist in Popper's 1st world -- i.e. they are objects). Our species hypotheses (which exist in Popper's 2nd world) can then be tested by others that follow to be verified or falsified. Isn't this how empirical science should work and our understanding of the biological world progress? It is up to journals to demand empirical proof from systematists to support their species hypotheses. This is why herbarium and museums collections are so important to maintain and foster -- they are the only way we can test previously published species hypotheses. 

Regards
Ashley

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] on behalf of Michael A. Ivie [mivie at montana.edu]
Sent: 23 October 2013 00:55
To: Doug Yanega
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Is the Company "YourSpecies" in Barcelona for real or ahoax?

>(heck, you can
> describe a new species as "red with black spots", even if it's actually
> blue with white spots, and the name will still be accepted).

No, it will not be accepted, but it will be valid and available.

;-)

Mike


--
Michael A. Ivie, Ph.D., F.R.E.S.
Montana Entomology Collection
Marsh Labs, Room 50
NW corner of Lincoln and S.19th
1911 West Lincoln Street
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717
USA

(406) 994-4610 (voice)
(406) 994-6029 (FAX)
mivie at montana.edu



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