3 ms·

Why Do Taxonomists Write the Meanest Obituaries? (2016)

36 points by dnetesn 8y ago

gweinberg 8y ago
TL;DR; because they deserve them.
B1FF_PSUVM 8y ago
(Senior moment: reading the title in the front page, mixing up taxonomists with taxidermists and wondering why that should be contentious ;-) Amusing, but it's not really surprising that people who are attracted to that sort of thing would get stroppy about sloppy work. Actually, organized armies on opposing sides of some contentious bone would not be far-fetched ... Reminds me of a book about musical invective I've lost somewhere.
rectangletangle 8y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem >The species problem is the set of questions that arises when biologists attempt to define what a species is. Such a definition is called a species concept; there are at least 26 recognized species concepts
- Myrmornis 8y ago
  Agreed, there are fundamental problems in this field. Many biologists for some reason will not accept that, when populations A and B are not sympatric, the process of evolution does not offer any obvious definition of "belong to the same species" in the question "do A and B belong to the same species?" But it's very tricky. On the opposite side from the theoretical/philosophical considerations of what entities participating in the evolutionary process should have what names, there are extremely valid pragmatic considerations: if we are to save habitat and certain lineages then it's helpful to just agree on the damn name and get on with the difficult work of conservation biology which is conducted in the world of human politics, not the pages of a systematics journal. And in fact in many cases it will help the survival of a geographically isolated lineage to err in the direction of "splitting" it out as a separate species, regardless of pointy-headed academic considerations.
mmirate 8y ago
This article really makes taxonomy sound like life-sciences' bikeshedding.
dankohn1 8y ago
You can find a similar level of obsession and complaint in CNCF's efforts to curate a cloud native landscape: https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape (I'm the primary author.)

36 points by dnetesn 8y ago

TL;DR; because they deserve them.

(Senior moment: reading the title in the front page, mixing up taxonomists with taxidermists and wondering why that should be contentious ;-) Amusing, but it's not really surprising that people who are attracted to that sort of thing would get stroppy about sloppy work. Actually, organized armies on opposing sides of some contentious bone would not be far-fetched ... Reminds me of a book about musical invective I've lost somewhere.

rectangletangle 8y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem >The species problem is the set of questions that arises when biologists attempt to define what a species is. Such a definition is called a species concept; there are at least 26 recognized species concepts

Myrmornis 8y ago
Agreed, there are fundamental problems in this field. Many biologists for some reason will not accept that, when populations A and B are not sympatric, the process of evolution does not offer any obvious definition of "belong to the same species" in the question "do A and B belong to the same species?" But it's very tricky. On the opposite side from the theoretical/philosophical considerations of what entities participating in the evolutionary process should have what names, there are extremely valid pragmatic considerations: if we are to save habitat and certain lineages then it's helpful to just agree on the damn name and get on with the difficult work of conservation biology which is conducted in the world of human politics, not the pages of a systematics journal. And in fact in many cases it will help the survival of a geographically isolated lineage to err in the direction of "splitting" it out as a separate species, regardless of pointy-headed academic considerations.

mmirate 8y ago

This article really makes taxonomy sound like life-sciences' bikeshedding.

dankohn1 8y ago

You can find a similar level of obsession and complaint in CNCF's efforts to curate a cloud native landscape: https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape https://landscape.cncf.io/format=landscape (I'm the primary author.)