[Taxacom] [iczn-list] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE

[Richard Pyle]

Hi Carlos,

 

Yes, absolutely!!  There are definitely elements of passion, self-righteousness and blindness on both sides (I have no doubt that I suffer these as well, as one can often be blind to one’s own blindness).  But to be fair, I haven’t heard such a passionate and public “call to arms” from “their” side (not yet, anyway).

 

As to your questions:

 

> Can anyone claim that 15 species in one genus are new 

> when they know that there are 52 other species but 

> they only diagnosed the 15 "new" among them and 

> from the type species, while neglecting other 

> 51 species on purpose? 

> Can someone claim that those 15 species are new? 

> Do you support that claim? Was letting that claim 

> pass a reviewer and an editorial mistake or not?

 

That seems like a bit of a loaded set of questions.  But the truthful answer is: “It depends”.  I would need to understand much more about the full context of the 15 proposed new species, the 52 other species, and the nature of the characters used to distinguish them.  There are plenty of new species described within highly speciose genera, where direct comparisons are not made to every other known species in the genus. So the context of your question is incomplete, and I cannot confidently answer without more context.

 

But no matter what the answer is, there is a large gap between “this paper failed to make a compelling case in establishing new species”, and “DNA barcodes alone cannot be used to fulfill the requirements of Art 13.1.1 of the ICZN Code”.  And an even bigger gap between one paper’s attempt to define new species, and the question of whether the next (5th) Edition of the Code should be more accommodating to DNA-based characters for establishing new species, or less so.  To me, THAT is the core question that you are addressing in your “General Call to Battle”.  Or at least, that was my interpretation of what your battle is about.

 

Aloha,

Rich

 

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704

Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252

eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org

 <http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html> BishopMuseum.org

Our Mission: Bishop Museum inspires our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

 

From: Admin Admin <archilegt at gmail.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 11:37 AM
To: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
Cc: Scott Thomson <scott.thomson321 at gmail.com>; Thomas Pape <tpape at snm.ku.dk>; Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>; iczn-list at afriherp.org
Subject: Re: [iczn-list] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE

 

Hi Rich,

Thank you for your words. I have no doubt that there are very good people on both sides. I also agree that "passion can be blinding – leading to a kind of self-righteousness that can ultimately cause more harm than good." Isn't that what we are seeing in the method by Meierotto et al. (2019) and Sharkey et al. (2021)? Now, given the broad call that was launched, I am sure that multiple issues with blindness and self-righteousness will be collaboratively corrected.

I am going to make a direct question to you: Can anyone claim that 15 species in one genus are new when they know that there are 52 other species but they only diagnosed the 15 "new" among them and from the type species, while neglecting other 51 species on purpose? Can someone claim that those 15 species are new? Do you support that claim? Was letting that claim pass a reviewer and an editorial mistake or not?

Looking forward to your answer,

Carlos

 

On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 11:09 PM Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org <mailto:deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> > wrote:

Hi Carlos,

 

I sympathize where you are coming from on this.  My only concern is that you seem a bit too confident that your position is the “right” one.  Passion is a wonderful thing – almost all of my successes in life can be credited to my own passion for various things.  However, sometimes passion can be blinding – leading to a kind of self-righteousness that can ultimately cause more harm than good.   Allusions to what has happened in the U.S. over the past 4 years (not just January 6 of this year) are, in my view, an apt metaphor.  Don’t follow the lead of the U.S. – rather, learn from its mistakes (for the record, I was born and raised in Hawaii, and my family roots here go back four generations, long before these islands were a U.S. State, so even though I am certainly a part of the U.S., I am also in some ways apart from it).

 

Anyway, I already said what I wanted to say in my last post.  But on this particular issue, which I’ve been actively involved with since the earliest days of DNA sequencing, even before Paul Herbert launched his “crusade” for barcodes, I feel confident in asserting what has become a very notorious statement in another context: There are very good people on both sides.

 

Aloha,

Rich

 

Richard L. Pyle, PhD
Senior Curator of Ichthyology | Director of XCoRE

Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1525 Bernice Street, Honolulu, HI 96817-2704

Office: (808) 848-4115;  Fax: (808) 847-8252

eMail: deepreef at bishopmuseum.org <mailto:deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> 

 <http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html> BishopMuseum.org

Our Mission: Bishop Museum inspires our community and visitors through the exploration and celebration of the extraordinary history, culture, and environment of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific.

 

From: iczn-list <iczn-list-bounces at afriherp.org <mailto:iczn-list-bounces at afriherp.org> > On Behalf Of Admin Admin
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 10:28 AM
To: Scott Thomson <scott.thomson321 at gmail.com <mailto:scott.thomson321 at gmail.com> >
Cc: Thomas Pape <tpape at snm.ku.dk <mailto:tpape at snm.ku.dk> >; Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> >; iczn-list at afriherp.org <mailto:iczn-list at afriherp.org> 
Subject: Re: [iczn-list] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE

 

Dear Scott,

I am 100% with you, for the paper. I am also 100% up if you, Rich and/or someone else more experienced leads the paper. I am leading something different: a battle cry. We already discussed the paper by Meierotto et al. (2019) in Taxacom and nothing happened. There was a reply paper to Meierotto et al. (2019) by Zamani et al. (2020), my colleagues, from which I refrained to participate, and nothing happened. Now we found ourselves with Sharkey et al. (2021), who did it again, who introduced additional fallacies, and who threatened to do it again. They are acting from a position of power, technology, "modernism", numbers, logical fallacies, and more. 

I am not going to risk that nothing happens again. We have already given alternatives for years and they have refused to hear those alternatives. Some molecular geneticists want the validity that our primarily morphological system gives, without doing the job, and they are willing to wipe off priority from others who did or are doing that job. My reply without filters: Not in my watch. Let's reach this agreement: We will be all conciliatory, diplomatic, and intransigent with letting fallacies to be published that you and others may want, in the paper. And you will let me carry the weight of those authors in question not wanting to work with me, and you will let me lead this battle cry, so that something actually happens.

I am not going to sit and see how logical fallacies of novelty continue to be published, and I am not going to sit and see how 250+ years of morphological taxonomy are overwritten and not integrated. Again, sorry, I have no filters for this battle, not this time. There is too much to lose.

I will also highlight that we are not talking about governance here, and about imposing one hypothesis (a classification) over all others. Many aggregators already handle multiple alternative classifications and we agreed that there will be no governance over those hypotheses. I maintain a classification myself in Myriatrix, and I have already pointed out elsewhere that Myriatrix classification should peacefully coexist with other classifications. What we are talking about here is about overwriting one system of nomenclature with another system of nomenclature. If we fail to stop that, there will come the division that you fear, to an extent that will make the Code crack with the weight of our own failure.

I hope that we can work together in the reply to Sharkey et al (2021) and to Meierotto et al (2019).

Kind regards,

Carlos