[Taxacom] General call to collaboration

[Scott Thomson]

As much as I am sure many if not most taxonomists would love to just think
they are describing and defining biodiversity and delineating
relationships. We do need to always keep in mind that our decisions have
far reaching consequences for other users of taxonomy. This is not just
limited to ecology or conservation. It is also important in medicine,
biochemistry, and legislation, even archaeology and history. Part of our
job is providing the nomenclature all other fields use. We need to
appreciate this.

Cheers Scott



On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 11:59 AM Dilrukshan Wijesinghe via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> 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.
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 34 years,
> 1987-2021.
>
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>
> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 34 years, 1987-2021.
>


-- 
Scott Thomson

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