[Taxacom] [iczn-list] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE
Richard Pyle
deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Wed Feb 10 18:08:59 CST 2021
Thanks, Carlos! I admit that I’m less interested in the specific examples than I am in the general principles. Many thanks for clarifying your stance on the “differentiation from the previous”. I now understand your concern more clearly. I know there are a lot of discussions on this point, and again I see both sides.
To be perfectly honest, I think a MUCH greater failure in taxonomy is imprecise designation of the name-bearing type specimen. So often I see indications of type specimens that meet the requirement of the Code, but that are nevertheless ambiguous in terms of referencing a particular specimen. Many times unique catalog numbers are not provided (sometimes not even issued), and as such one has to rely on the specimen metadata and the policies/procedures/data tracking standards of the host repository institution to link the name to its type. To me, the requirement that authors must describe in words the characters purported to differentiate the taxon when proposing new names is an empty, imprecise, nearly unenforceable, ambiguous, and largely archaic requirement. I can fulfill this requirement simply by stating “my new taxon differs from that other existing taxon in that mine has a longer snout”. If given a choice between that nearly useless statement, vs. a high-resolution photograph of the type, or a DNA barcode of the type, the latter two are VASTLY more useful in diagnosing the taxon – even if they are provided in the absence of any words that explicitly call attention to purported differences.
I could continue to ramble on, and to some extent I’m playing devil’s advocate in the above paragraph. But the point is that the requirement for “a description or definition that states in words characters that are purported to differentiate the taxon” (Art 13.1.1) can be argued to be among the most useless of provisions in the Code. I suspect that almost all of us who have looked at the matter closely agree that the next Edition of the Code needs to be improved. But the challenge – and I suspect most of the disagreement – will be in exactly how to revise this provision.
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
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Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 12:50 PM
To: Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org>
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Subject: Re: [iczn-list] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE
Hi Rich,
I am at GMT+2 and I will go to sleep now. The context that you are asking for is in Meierotto et al. 2019. Anyone who acted as reviewer of Sharkey et al. 2021 should have read that paper. And the answer is straightforward: No, novelty cannot be claimed, on the grounds of Logic alone, when the “new” has not been differentiated from the “previous”. And: “Yes, Meierotto et al. 2019 represents a clear failure by the reviewers and the editor.
About “DNA barcodes alone cannot be used to fulfill the requirements of Art 13.1.1 of the ICZN Code”: You got me wrong. This is not about banning molecular diagnoses. This is not even about requesting integrative diagnoses. This is about recognizing that “differentiation from the previous” needs to be enforced and practiced for the Code and our community not to break apart. “Differentiation from the previous” needs completion of one character set before one diagnostic system can replace another. Is the pervasive lack of logical and critical thinking what actually worries me.
More “tomorrow”. Aloha to you,
Carlos
On Thu, 11 Feb 2021 at 0.37, Richard Pyle <deepreef at bishopmuseum.org <mailto:deepreef at bishopmuseum.org> > wrote:
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 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/1525+Bernice+Street,+Honolulu,+HI+96817-2704+Office:+(808?entry=gmail&source=g>
Office: (808 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/1525+Bernice+Street,+Honolulu,+HI+96817-2704+Office:+(808?entry=gmail&source=g> ) 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.
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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 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/1525+Bernice+Street,+Honolulu,+HI+96817-2704+Office:+(808?entry=gmail&source=g>
Office: (808 <https://www.google.com/maps/search/1525+Bernice+Street,+Honolulu,+HI+96817-2704+Office:+(808?entry=gmail&source=g> ) 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.
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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
--
Carlos A. Martínez Muñoz
Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit
FI-20014 University of Turku
Finland
Myriatrix <http://myriatrix.myspecies.info/>
ResearchGate profile <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Martinez-Munoz>
Myriapod Morphology and Evolution <https://www.facebook.com/groups/205802113162102/>
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