[Taxacom] We are cataloguing hypotheses & not real things -- I hope everyone appreciates the implications of this. Was Global species lists ....
Raymond Hoser - The Snakeman
viper007 at live.com.au
Sun Sep 1 06:20:03 CDT 2013
Thanks Wulf for your insight.
I might add that when you engage in taxonomic vandalism and
creationism instead of science, you end up with names for imaginary species that clutter up the
world with synonyms.
A good example of three such names for totally imaginary species
is found here:
http://www.smuggled.com/scientific-fraud-wulf-schleip.htm
All the best
Snakebustersâ - Australia's best reptilesâ
The only hands-on reptilesâ shows that lets people hold the animalsâ.
Reptile partiesâ, events, courses
Phones: 9812 3322
0412 777 211
> From: webmaster at leiopython.de
> To: Michael.Ohl at mfn-berlin.de; Nicholasa at ukzn.ac.za; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2013 09:48:55 +0200
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] We are cataloguing hypotheses & not real things -- I hope everyone appreciates the implications of this. Was Global species lists ....
>
> Dear Michael, dear list,
>
> yes, nomenclature and taxonomy are two different things. While nomenclature
> is simply a tool for taxonomy, both canot exist without each other. What use
> would nomenclature do without anything to name? And what chaos would we have
> if we differntiate or classify things without making them clearly
> identifiable (e.g., by names or numbers)?
>
> So, in nomenclature we have names, but these names are usually represented
> by a typ species (generic) or specimen (specific and subspecific). There is
> a concept (maybe a hypothesis) behind each scientific name. Therefore, we
> use the name as an alias for 1) a label for the type specimen itself, 2) for
> the type specimen as an objective reference with characters on which the
> concept/hypothesis usually is based on, and 3) for the taxon differentiated
> from others by the concept/hypothesis.
>
> A name, therefore, is more than just a name and a catalogue is more than a
> list of names.
>
> Cheers,
> Wulf
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] Im Auftrag von Ohl, Michael
> Gesendet: Freitag, 30. August 2013 13:26
> An: 'Ashley Nicholas'; 'taxacom taxacom'
> Betreff: Re: [Taxacom] We are cataloguing hypotheses & not real things -- I
> hope everyone appreciates the implications of this. Was Global species lists
> ....
>
> I disagree. We are cataloging neither hypotheses nor real things, but
> linguistic items that may or may not be proper names in a linguistic sense
> and that may or may not label hypotheses on the existence of natural things
> beyond the human mind. Opinions differ on both. This is an important
> difference, which has been repeatedly been discussed as the difference
> between nomenclature and taxonomy. Names have no other function than to
> label information, and cataloging these linguistic labels is important in
> order to optimize access to the underlying information. The questions of the
> reality and nature of species, whether they are biological species,
> individuals, relations, or even non-existent, are important, but are not a
> matter of names as linguistic elements, which denote concepts. So catalogues
> are not catalogues of species hypotheses but of names.
>
> Cheers, Michael
>
>
>
> PD Dr. Michael Ohl
> Curator // Head of Entomological Collections Museum fuer Naturkunde
> Leibniz-Institut fuer Evolutions- und Biodiversitaetsforschung Invalidenstr.
> 43
> D-10115 Berlin, Germany
> Tel: ++49-30-2093-8507
> Fax: ++49-30-2093-8868
>
> E-Mail: michael.ohl(at)mfn-berlin.de
> URL: http://www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/institution/mitarbeiter/ohl-micha
> el/
>
> Geschäftsführer der Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik (GfBS) Managing
> Editor Arthropoda von Zoosystematics and Evolution
>
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] Im Auftrag von Ashley Nicholas
> Gesendet: Freitag, 30. August 2013 12:32
> An: taxacom taxacom
> Betreff: [Taxacom] We are cataloguing hypotheses & not real things -- I hope
> everyone appreciates the implications of this. Was Global species lists ....
>
> Dear All,
>
> I just hope that people doing these digital catalogues appreciate that all
> they are doing is cataloguing hypotheses -- in this case species hypotheses
> (species are not real entities -- Popper's World 2)? We measure specimens
> and populations (Popper's World 1). We extrapolate this limited data to
> hypothesise species. If a researcher can claim to have measured every
> specimen and population of a species (maybe possible for species confined to
> small areas esp. islands [maybe this is why vicariance is so easily
> demonstrated in island situation?]). Only then can s/he claim to have
> objectified a species. However, even then this will only hold true for that
> instance because as the gene pool changes over time s/he can no longer claim
> to have objectified that species.
>
> These catalogues are catalogues of species hypotheses. Hypotheses are not
> the "truth" they are suppositions that remain to be verified (a shaky
> premise) or falsified (a better premise). So who is someone doing a
> catalogue to say that one species hypothesis is the correct one -- and
> include it, while rejecting all others? As an empirical scientist that makes
> me feel very uncomfortable.
>
> However, I can see that something needs to be produced for conservationists
> etc. to use. I have no answer. Taxonomy was originally both a science and a
> service (to societies) and we still need to fulfil this role. I was called
> in to identify a plant that had poisoned two young children recently -- and
> thanked my orthodox training because I had the skill to select the one
> "species" in our province from the other 6500 that also occur here in order
> to save their lives. However, the scientist in me also understands the fact
> that we cannot have a dictatorial system that selects some species
> hypotheses over others; science should not be dictatorial -- and these
> catalogues often are.
>
> Regards
> Ashley
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Dave Roberts
> Sent: 29 August 2013 15:21
> To: taxacom taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] global species lists and taxonomy ( was Re: Draft
> Checklist ...)
>
> Dear all,
>
> I fear that the comparatively greater complexity of the animals will make
> such an approach a considerable amount of work, or more bluntly, will be
> significantly hard.
>
> With the list of names, on which so many people are labouring without, as
> Rich says, sufficient coordination, we also need a classification bank, a
> simple way to find in how many arrangements a given taxon has been placed.
> That was one of the priorities identified in the Biodiversity Informatics
> Decadal Vision [1].
>
> The EU's funding programme H2020 is an opportunity to create a large
> consortium to do exactly that level of coordination. The problem, though,
> is to link it in some way to either job creation or policy making at an EU
> scale. The advantage is that international collaboration (i.e. outside
> Europe) is likely to be more tractable in H2020.
>
> Next week's meeting in Rome [2] is a starting point for that kind of
> discussion.
>
> Cheers, Dave
>
> [1] Hardisty, Alex, Dave Roberts, and The Biodiversity Informatics
> Community. "A Decadal View of Biodiversity Informatics: Challenges and
> Priorities." BMC Ecology 13 (2013): 16. doi:10.1186/1472-6785-13-16.
> http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/13/16
>
> [2] http://conference.lifewatch.unisalento.it/index.php/EBIC/BIH2013/
>
> --
> On 29 Aug 2013, at 13:08, nicky nicolson <nicky.nicolson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks Karen, yes this is what we are working on in botany and
> > mycology - we are using the nomenclators (IPNI and IF) to provide the
> > fundamental units (names and the objective relationships between them)
> > and then supporting multiple overlapping - even contradictory -
> > classifications to be built using these same fundamental units. We are
> > storing enough data on the relationships which form the taxonomic
> > classifications to do the kind of assessments that Fred suggests -
> > e.g. to take into account how recently the hypothesis was published,
> > who published it and where (e.g. was it a regional treatment or a
> globally-scoped monograph).
> > I did quite a general talk about this at the Natural History Museum in
> > London recently, video here:
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynFB6DWCBjc and slides here:
> > http://www.slideshare.net/nickyn/nicolson-namesbackbonenhm
> > We've a funded project to rebuild Kew's taxonomic systems in this
> > environment, and we are working on incorporating the World Checklist
> > system at the moment, although our communications standard is TCS so
> > we should be able to import / export data from many different sources.
> > cheers,
> > Nicky
> >
> > PS: I'll be at TDWG along with a few people from the Kew team if
> > anybody is interested in having a closer look.
> >
> >
> > On 29 August 2013 12:18, Karen Cranston <karen.cranston at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> It is not too hard to implement this type of system. Both IPNI and
> >> Open Tree of Life are currently implementing a relatively new graph
> >> database model (database called neo4j) to load and store multiple
> >> hierarchies in the same data structure. Then, you can traverse the
> >> graph (which contains all of the nodes and edges, and therefore all
> >> of the conflict) in various ways in order to summarize / resolve
> >> conflicts / find interesting patterns. You could use algorithmic and
> >> / or human-curated approaches to annotate or resolve parts of the
> >> hierarchy, while still keeping all of the information from the
> >> sources. Visualization libraries like d3 make it easy to create images or
> interactive tools to explore the data in the graph.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Aug 29, 2013 at 7:03 AM, Erik Rijkers <er at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Thu, August 29, 2013 12:31, Fred Schueler wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe we want to take a lesson from the physicists' ideas of
> >>>> infinite parallel universes, and program systems where all
> >>>> published classifications are represented, but with some sort of
> >>>> combined voting or weighting by the recency of publication, and
> >>>> wiki-style comments and discussion, to show users which
> >>>> classifications are more currently approved and used.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> hear, hear!
> >>>
> >>> IMHO, this is the only possible way to get usefully stable global lists.
> >>>
> >>> It amounts to the realisation that the classification business is
> >>> producing opinions (however obnoxious this may sound to the
> >>> taxonomist).
> >>>
> >>> So databases should amass these opinions with plenty factual detail
> >>> but without implicitly endowing any classification-opinion with the
> >>> distinction of being "fact".
> >>>
> >>> It would seem this obvious way of doing taxonomical databases is not
> >>> too hard to implement but I have never seen it done , or even
> >>> acknowledged as necessary.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Erikjan Rijkers
>
> --
> Dr D.McL. Roberts, Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5086
> ViBRANT Project Manager,
> Dept. Life Sciences,
> The Natural History Museum,
> Cromwell Road,
> London SW7 5BD
> Great Britain Email: dmr at nomencurator dot org
> Web page: http://vbrant.eu
> Web page: http://scratchpads.eu
> Web page: http://www.editwebrevisions.info/
> --
> "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try and give it to
> them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." [Steve
> Jobs, quoted in The Guardian, Technology Section, 25 June 09].
> --
>
>
>
>
>
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