[Taxacom] We are cataloguing hypotheses & not real things -- I hope everyone appreciates the implications of this. Was Global species lists ....

[Fred Schueler]

On 9/1/2013 5:44 AM, Pierre Deleporte wrote:

> - I clearly remember that some scientist colleagues (ecologists and ethologists),
> in the seventies, were very crossed against taxonomists
> because "They always change the names of the species"

* ho, ho! I sell specimens to some biochemists, and while they're 
perfectly willing to use advanced ideas in their own work, and wouldn't 
be caught dead using the same methods they used in 1983, I have to use 
the old name of the species on the invoices or they won't be honoured.

> My colleagues of the time superbly ignored taxonomy (that old stuff),
> they had strictly no interest in systematics/phylogeny
> (I once was named a "guy from planet Mars" in the lab,
> it was in 1988)
> and they had the illusion of their near-completeness
> (...the job must certainly be completed by now),
> they viewed nomenclatural variants as nonsensical arbitrary disputes,
> they just wanted to use "the right species name" fixed once and forever
> (like a "user-friendly barcode" in words?...)
>
> they were professional scientists,
> but regarding nomenclature they were just part of the lay people


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          Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - http://pinicola.ca/mudpup1.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
          RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
   on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
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