Re: FutureNomenclature (LONG)

[Una Smith <una@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steven J. Gould and Elizabeth S. Vrba wrote in _Paleobiology_ 8(1):4-15
(1982) that "Taxonomies are not neutral or arbitrary hat-racks for a set
of unvarying concepts;  they reflect (or even create) different theories
about the structure of the world."  I think it is a very important paper.
The title is "Exaptation -- a missing term in the science of form", and
the paper is about the important distinction between "adaptation" as used
by systematists and those biologists who are not systematists, and why
this distinction is so important.  But the paper also makes good points
about other aspects of science that I think are relevant to this thread.

As the Code states, nomenclature is a somewhat constrained system that
permits to an extent a controlled vocabulary, a tool with which we build
the very unconstrained system of knowledge that we call systematics.

I am sorry to see physics/math envy cropping up among paleontologists.
Physicists and mathematicians (many of them) bemoan the monolithic
and sterile nature of their own science.  For some reason, they seem
better able to keep it among themselves, and do not beat one another
over the head with the inadequacies of their science.  Perhaps they see
that the problem is with the nature of physics, not a failing on their
own part.  I have had many long conversations with successful, highly
regarded physicists and mathematicians, in which they confess envy of
biologists, for the richness of the frontier of knowledge that we have
before us now, and have only begun to explore.

I am dismayed when biologists punish one another for the very complex
and sometimes intractable nature of biology.  Ecologists do this all the
time, when faced with the pressure of explaining how a Spotted Owl can
be more valuable than a man's job, and with being ordered to provide
the "right" answer.  As scientists, we believe that the best we can do 
is to give the "best" answer, but we know that future researchers may
find an even better one.  A child says "fix it", and the best a parent
can do in many cases is to promise to try.  To blame one another for 
what is broken is destructive and pointless, because no one is at fault.
To explore with great care and creativity the source of the problem and
possible ways to fix it is the most (and the best) we can do.  

The problem we face is the need to build a usable, reliable, up-to-date
taxonomic system for the use of resource managers and others, without
compromising new research.  We must have a unified system, but it must
not be a monolithic system.  It must be constructed in such a way that
some elements are fixed, or at least firm, while others are allowed to
change, or even to exist in different, mutually incompatible forms.

Here's an illustration, using plant systematics.  We really don't know,
except in vague terms, how to group the 500 or so families of the more
than 250,000 species of flowering plants alive today.  Several great
scholars have proposed systems.  These systems agree to some extent, but
there are also points of significant disagreement:  some of these cover
areas of active research.  Most researchers, working on smaller groups
within the angiosperms (families within a large order perhaps) will take
as a framework the higher system of one or the other great scholar, and
work from there.  If they used no system, these researchers would not be
able to make sense their own work, much less hope that anyone else would
understand their work.

There is wonderful package by Michael Dallwitz, named DELTA, that can
be used by systematists to build data structures that encorporate their
knowledge.  Also by Dallwitz, is a program INTKEY for manipulating a
data structure as, for example, a multiple entry identification key.
One such data structure treats all the families of flowering plants.
A user who wishes to investigate the orders of flowering plants has the
option of specifying which of the great scholars' systems to use, to 
define the familial contents of each order.  Shouldn't resource managers
have the option of trying each one, and using the system that seems to
fit best?  These are extremely powerful and complex tools.

Along these same lines, several plant taxonomy research groups are
interested in building a unified system that treats all taxonomic groups
in this way, from species on up.  Or perhaps even from voucher specimens
on up, by way of formal descriptions etc., and including all available
knowledge.  I believe such a thing will be created, and that it will all
come together here, on the Internet, very soon.


I hope I haven't bored or annoyed anyone with this long note.  I'm just
getting started, and working through problems myself.  I have learned a
lot from following the TAXACOM mailing list, and checking out Internet
archives for resources mentioned there.  To subscribe to TAXACOM, send
e-mail to listserv@cmsa.berkeley.edu, with the text

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Merry Christmas,

	Una Smith			una.smith@yale.edu

Dept. of Biology, Yale Univ., New Haven, CT  06520-8104