[Taxacom] General call to collaboration

[Dilrukshan Wijesinghe]

Thank you, Adam, for your reply and clarification. My apologies for the misunderstanding.

Priyantha 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 13, 2021, at 8:59 AM, Adam Cotton via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
> 
> -------- 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.
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
> 
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org
> 
> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 34 years, 1987-2021.