[Taxacom] OK Taxacomers, you have had your chance, now it's the lawyers turn.

[Stephen Thorpe]

>The clarity of thought and political honesty of government officials and agencies in your country must be a great example to others<

No, they are every bit as bad as USA (maybe even worse in some instances*), but I think that there are much bigger problems than the one here discussed. If a funder wants a result from a taxonomist to follow a preferred species concept, then I don't really see a problem. If the taxonomist is being paid by the funder then they should give the funder what the funder wants, shouldn't they? They can always do it both ways (their preferred species concept and the funder's) and let the user use whichever option they prefer. Most of the time it shouldn't make much difference anyway. So, again, I just don't see this as a big problem.

Stephen

* E.g., how about the public funded (4 years so far) project "The Responses of Alpine Beetles to Climate Change" (see https://aucklandecology.com/2016/07/01/care-for-the-creepy-crawlies/ and https://aucklandecology.com/2016/01/28/the-pitfalls-of-fiordland-field-work/ )? Public money spent mostly on travel from one end of the country to another, with helicopter rides up to the remote study site, but all that they are doing is putting wire mesh cages over tussocks in the Fiordland mountains. Some material fabric around the top of a cage is supposed to increase the temperature in the cage when the sun shines on it. A bucket pitfall trap was dug into the ground within the cage and the whole thing is left out day and night for 4 months. Then they collect in the pitfall trap and basically just count all the adult beetles which have fallen into the pitfall trap and died! I can tell you that robust adult beetles are not sensitive to such wishy-washy temperature fluctuations on the scale of just a few square metres! The massive edge effect randomises the data at every step. The data collected shows nothing (no surprises there!), but the suggestion from those involved was that maybe 4 years isn't enough, and a longer term study may well find an effect! In other words, keep the funding coming, and we'll keep going down to Fiordland and keep trying to heat up beetles! Consider this: several thousand native beetles fell into the pitfall traps and died over the 4 year period of the study, and for no gain in understanding of climate change or indeed anything else! The Fiordland mountains are an environmentally sensitive area. If you go there and kill just a single native beetle without a permit, you would be open to prosecution by DoC, and yet thousands of native beetles have been killed just for the sake of corporate profits! When I told a certain Assoc. Prof. at University of Auckland of my concerns that the project was a waste of public funding and puts the student at a disadvantage as it denies them the opportunity to achieve excellence (since you can't turn a nonsense project into a scholarship winning Masters thesis, or whatever), her reply was [quote] public money gets wasted all the time, so why are you making such a big deal of this case? [unquote] and [quote] we don't expect Masters students to do very well anyway [unquote]! I then made a formal complaint about the project to the Dean of Science, shortly before my access agreement with UoA came up for annual renewal in Dec 2016. After much prodding, I managed to get the Dean to look into it. He gave a deputy the task of writing a reply to my concerns. This reply was a complete whitewash. When I raised specific issues with the reply, I was told by the Dean that as far as he was concerned the matter was closed and he would not be replying to any further issues raised by me about it. It then appeared as if my access was not going to be renewed, but at the very last minute it was renewed, but only for 3 months rather than the usual 1 year. Nobody has ever given me an explanation for why the 3 months, but shortly before the 3 months ended, I was summoned to a meeting with the Dean. He told me that he was terminating my access immediately and had me escorted off the premises by security guard! My only way of making any sense of this is that the 3 months was intended to put enough distance between my formal complaint and my subsequent eviction from the university to make it appear as if these issues were unrelated. Indeed, although I received nothing in writing, the Dean told me that my eviction (just a few days before the 3 months was up) [quote] had nothing to do with the complaint [unquote]! Instead, he made a vague and unsubstantiated accusation that it was because I made [quote] threatening and abusive emails to staff and students [unquote]! When I pressed him for details, he refused to give any details, and after more pressing, retracted to [quote] could be interpreted as threatening and abusive [unquote]! After even more pressing, he retracted further to [quote] you just don't know when to let things drop, and it is causing trouble, that is the reason [unquote]!

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On Wed, 29/11/17, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org> wrote:

 Subject: RE: [Taxacom] OK Taxacomers, you have had your chance, now it's the lawyers turn.
 To: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>, "James H. Beach" <beach at ku.edu>, "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Donat Agosti" <agosti at amnh.org>
 Received: Wednesday, 29 November, 2017, 9:46 AM
 
 Maybe I'm cynical because
 I'm an America, now in the throes of a fascist
 revolution. The clarity of thought and political honesty of
 government officials and agencies in your country must be a
 great example to others. Say, I'll trade you Trump for
 your present leader. Anybody. Heck, I'll throw in
 Alaska.
 Richard
 
 
 -------
 Richard H. Zander
 Missouri
 Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis –
 Missouri – 63110 – USA
 richard.zander at mobot.org
 
 Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
 and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/