[Taxacom] General call to collaboration

[Adam Cotton]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:     Re: [Taxacom] General call to collaboration
Date:     Sat, 13 Feb 2021 08:28:46 -0500
From:     Dilrukshan Wijesinghe <dpwijesinghe at yahoo.com>
To:     Adam Cotton <adamcot at cscoms.com>
CC:     taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu


This is such a serious misunderstanding and misrepresentation of 
taxonomy and systematics that it should not go unchallenged. Taxonomy 
and biological systematics are not mere services provided by 
taxonomists/systematists to be used by others or in other disciplines. 
It does not matter to me that a species described by me or a phylogeny 
proposed by me never features in an ecological, agricultural, medical or 
whatever field. Yes, taxonomic research facilitates the identification 
of different kinds of organisms and enables communication about them, 
but that is incidental to the primary goal of discovering and 
documenting biological diversity.

I don’t disagree with the other comments about the need for 
phenotypically based criteria for describing and diagnosing taxa. We 
don’t recognize individuals of our own species by barcodes, it is 
irresponsible for practicing taxonomists/systematists to downplay the 
importance of the phenotype and especially to promote the use of 
molecular sequence data (genotype) to the detriment of traditional 
practice which emphasizes morphology and other phenotypic criteria.

Priyantha
 >
 >
 >

Priyantha,

Apologies if my wording confused you. I was not implying that the ONLY 
purpose of taxonomy was to assist the studies of biologists in other 
fields, but taxonomists should always bear in mind that the 
classifications we produce will be used by non-specialists who will want 
to assign the perceived 'correct' names to the taxa they come across.

Of course we document biodiversity and produce classifications, but that 
is not the "be all and end all" of taxonomic studies. Unfortunately in 
the modern world funding is not easily forthcoming for pure taxonomic 
studies for their sake alone.

Adam.