[Zoobank-list] "the real challenge" vs. overly complex proposals

[Richard Pyle]

In order to avoid continuation of the public "ping-pong" match, I confined my detailed response to Martin Spies' recent post to an off-list email.  In reading his post, however, I find that there are two sources of disagreement: legitimately different predictions about what actions will benefit the science of taxonomy more than others; and miscommunication.  I don't have time now to address the former in great detail, nor do I think it would necessarily benefit the members of this list to do so at this time.  However, I would like to clarify a few points of potential misunderstanding.

First, I did not intend give the impression that making names available sooner is a major reason that I support "Scenario 2".  I only offered that as a counterpoint to Martin's legitimate concern that Scenario 2 could allow an increased average potential of mis-applied names during the period between registration and formal publication, if the name is available from the point of registration.  I've already stated (several times) the main reasons I believe that, of the three proposed scenarios, the "registered=available" scenario will lead to the maximal long-term stability of nomenclature.  Clearly there is disagreement on this, which is not surprising, because we all base our predictions about the future on our past experiences, and we all have different past experience.

Second, I used the word "informatics" in a general way, but I see from a quick Google search that most people define it more precisely.  My meaning was to represent the mechanics of information dissemination in general -- which is ultimately what all science (and taxonomy in particular) is about. But it seems that these days, most people define that term only in the context of computer-based information management, which is NOT what I meant to imply. It was a bad choice of words on my part.

Finally, there seems to be a lot of confusion about my point regarding "disentanglement" of the science of taxonomy from the "legalities" of nomenclatural availability (including points about taxonomic names vs. concepts, and the objective attachment of a name to a holotype).  I do not have time now to explain this in any more detail than I already have attempted in previous posts, and I think an email post is not the best way to do it anyway. I will come back to this at a later time.

Aloha,
Rich

-----Original Message-----
From: zoobank-list-bounces at afriherp.org [mailto:zoobank-list-bounces at afriherp.org]On Behalf Of Spies, Martin
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 3:37 AM
To: Zoobank Discussion List (ICZN)
Subject: Re: [Zoobank-list] "the real challenge" vs. overly complex proposals


Nothing personal, Richard, but reassessing the cost/benefit ratio I see little use at this time - neither in the greater context nor on a personal level - in perpetuating our ping-pong singles match beyond my following (by necessity) selective remarks. (I wonder whether Frank is glad that I kind of took over the paddle from him.)

[etc...]