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If someone decides to revise a particular taxon, they write a paper....then...

firstly how does it get published? Who do they have to go to? What happens then, does it get reviewed or just deemed correct??

If a paper is published and is released, does it make it right? What about the papers before that?

For example, A.Tokar was the last person to write a paper on Eryx jaculus. I wholeheartedly disagee with him, and I feel he has not looked at the specimens from such a broad range. I currently keep several jaculus sp. of differing ranges, and at a minimum they deserve subspecies recognition, if not full species. So....does it make it right?

Any thoughts welcome.

Regards
Chris Jones

>>If someone decides to revise a particular taxon, they write a paper....then...
>>
>>firstly how does it get published? Who do they have to go to? What happens then, does it get reviewed or just deemed correct??

The normal procedure would be to publish any taxonomic revision in a peer-reviewed journal. In this case, the manuscript gets sent to the editor of the journal, who then identifies two-three other researchers with expertise in the taxon under study and/or the methods used. The manuscript is then sent to them, and they write a report on the paper, which will point out any flaws and make suggestions for improvements, and a recommendation to the editor, which can be along the lines of "accept as is" (rare), "accept subject to minor improvements", "reject but invite resubmission of considerably modified manuscript" (which is then reviewed again to ensure that the necessary improvements have been made), or outright rejection. The editor would normally study the reviewers' reports and recommendations and plump for one of these options.

>>If a paper is published and is released, does it make it right? What about the papers before that?

No paper changes biological reality. If a paper is based on convincing evidence, then most workers in the field will accept it, if it is weak (due to poor methods, sampling, interpretation, whatever), then most won't. There is no strict obligation to accept any published paper - anyone is free to reject teh conclusions. However, doing so without good reason and without new evidence tends to leave you in a small minority if the paper was sound in methods and conclusions.

>>For example, A.Tokar was the last person to write a paper on Eryx jaculus. I wholeheartedly disagee with him, and I feel he has not looked at the specimens from such a broad range. I currently keep several jaculus sp. of differing ranges, and at a minimum they deserve subspecies recognition, if not full species. So....does it make it right?

Like I said, it does not change biological reality. However, the question is, what other evidence is available that contradicts his paper? Even if his paper was not brilliant, its conclusions will probably be accepted if nothing better has been done. On the other hand, in other cases, a number of authors do good work, but disagree in their interpretations, so in that case, one may not be followed by the majority.

Hope this clairifies.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW Home

Thank you, that clears up a few things, but I am still unsure of certain aspects.

I do not have any experience in the field, and cannot comment on field research, and I am not capable (yet) of writing my own reports. However, if I revised A.Tokar's paper on Eryx jaculus, who should I send it to? And who would be the 'moderators'? Also, if those particular people disagreed, does it make my report wrong?

Also, if somebody revise's a particular taxon, when does it actually become valid?

For example, Candoia carinata sp. has been broken down into 10 different subspecies of Candoia carinata, and Candoia paulsoni. According to the last report anyway. However, nobody appears to be using the new names, and I have not even seen these listed on the highest of authorites boards, such as CITES etc..

Regards
Chris Jones

Hi Chris,

I do not have any experience in the field, and cannot comment on field research

I would be best to examine specimens in their natural habitat but this is not always possible for some reasons...But you can manage to examine as much museum specimens in natural history collections to come up with conclusions. But this is the hardest thing to do when you are not a professional biologist and do not have contact to an institution! Most of the museums will ignore your data requests...

I am not capable (yet) of writing my own reports.

Just read a lot of papers from other workers and you will soon know what and how to do. After that choose a journal you want to publish your paper in and read the submission rules that usually give you a hint to the formal structure that the paper should have to not be rejected. There is sort of lesson for scientific writers available as ebooks (pdf). Just send me an email (wulf@leiopython.de).

However, if I revised A.Tokar's paper on Eryx jaculus, who should I send it to? And who would be the 'moderators'?

You choose the journal and before submitting your paper you should get in contact with the chief editor. Usually in a peer-reviewed journal you can suggest some reviewers mentioned in a "reviewers list".

Also, if those particular people disagreed, does it make my report wrong?

Well, if you've done good work and can come up with conclusions supported by evidence based on your examination and methods and perhaps supported by prior workers and previous literature your paper will mostly just be rejected because the formalism is bad or even wrong.
BUT: First of all you will have to do a lot of literature study and get hold of every important prior published paper about the taxon/ family you want to revise. Perhaps there already is a synonym for the taxon you would suggest to be separate from others...

Also, if somebody revise's a particular taxon, when does it actually become valid?

Well, there actually is a difference between the "biological validiy" of an (sub-)species and the "availability" (not validity!) of a name under the rules of the ICZN code.
Even if a name is available under the code (which is a quite easy thing to manage, see i.e. Hoser's python paper 2000) this new taxon must not necessaryly be widley accepted as an own biological entity (i.e. Hoser's Chondropython paper 2003 lately discussed on this forum).

Hope this helps a bit...

Cheers,
Wulf

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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

Re the previous posts they generally seem sound, however I have a minor disagreement with the previous correspondent (Wulf).
That is re the Museums ignoring requests or words to that effect.
My own experiences and that of most peers is that museum curators are generally very helpful to researchers and even those who are clearly not even likely to publish, the latter being due to a desire for Museums to maintain public relevance.
The only constraint on this in terms of myself has been the schedules of collection managers and the like, but working within these constraints they've generally been faultless.
By the way Wulf, do you regard Leiopython hoserae Hoser 2000 as a valid taxon?, or merely as being no different to albertisi?
ALL THE BEST

Hi Ray,

your wrote:

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By the way Wulf, do you regard Leiopython hoserae Hoser 2000 as a valid taxon?, or merely as being no different to albertisi?
-

Look, you've again droped omiited an "i" at the end of YOUR species name...therefore I regard it as synonym by lapsus calami (typo error). Check the code *lol*

Yes Ray, even it's a pain in my a** I do accept L. hoserae as a available name and a valid species. But I do not accept your work on this species. You bearely meet the recommendations of the code describing this AMNH 107150 specimen from Wipim and the description is crab!

Can be distinguished by dorsal color and a larger average size....
I bet you've never done DNA analysis on them so you couldn't provide any data. AS well as "there are numerous other characters...." Which other characters are they? Scale count is equal to those specimen from the northern race. Right?!

So you will have to accept that people therefore critisize your work!

btw. Have you ever seen this AMNH 107150 specimen either personally or from a picture? And did you recognized that this specimen has only sixth to seventh supralabial entering the orbit (McDowell, 1975)? And are you sure that this taxon appears throughout the south of the dividing range? To many questions from you work, Ray. That's all.

take care,
Wulf
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http://www.leiopython.de ,
http://www.herpers-digest.com

>>Thank you, that clears up a few things, but I am still unsure of certain aspects.
>>
>>I do not have any experience in the field, and cannot comment on field research, and I am not capable (yet) of writing my own reports. However, if I revised A.Tokar's paper on Eryx jaculus, who should I send it to?

Firstly, you do not revise a paper, you revise a taxon.

Second, if you wanted to revise E. jaculus, that would involve visiting museums and examining additional material and characters, and doing further analyses (note: I have not seen Tokar's paper, so this should not be taken as criticism of it). In other words, you would have to produce new data which shed new light on the systematics of the species.

> And who would be the 'moderators'? Also, if those particular people disagreed, does it make my report wrong?

The moderators would be persons with experience of the taxon and/or the methods you use. The most usual approach would be for the editor of the journal to do a literature search for researchers who have recently published on Eryx and/or used the methods you use. For instance, it is quite possible that Tokar would be asked to comment on your manuscript, if he was the last one to work on Eryx jaculus.

Whether or not your report is wrong depends on what we are talking about. Your methods may be wrong, your interpretation may be wrong, or both. If you used the methods in an inappropriate manner, then that aspect would be wrong, period. If your conclusions are criticised, if would be a matter of deciding whether the criticisms are justified (i.e., your conclusions go beyond what is supported by your data and analyses), or whetehr the disagreement has more to do with personal philosophy and preferences (often the case when deciding on whether something should be a species or subspecies, for instance).

>>Also, if somebody revise's a particular taxon, when does it actually become valid?

As I said, except for the procedure of creating and managing names, there is no such thing as valid or invalid - it is simply a matter of whether the evidence presented in a paper is sufficient to convince everyone else.

The validity or otherwise of new names is governed by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, but this does not regulate other aspects of systematics, e.g., what evidence is required to sink or erect taxa, etc.

>>
>>For example, Candoia carinata sp. has been broken down into 10 different subspecies of Candoia carinata, and Candoia paulsoni. According to the last report anyway. However, nobody appears to be using the new names, and I have not even seen these listed on the highest of authorites boards, such as CITES etc..

These things take quite a while to sink in and CITES in particular tends to be pretty slow in adopting new arrangements. There is no such thing as a "highest of authority boards". If you read the toxinological literature, you would think that no taxonomy on venomous snakes has been done since the 1960s. If you look at the homeopathic literature, you get the impression that nobody has worked on venomous snake taxonomy since the 1860s. In other words, just because a change has not filtered through the entire system, that does not mean that the change is either unwarranted or bad.

Hope this clarifies.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW Home

WW wrote:
"If you read the toxinological literature, you would think that no taxonomy on venomous snakes has been done since the 1960s."

That is true only if they are written by pharmacologists, who often do not keep themselves informed of the latest taxonomic proposals. The same is true of many other biologists who do not specialize in some aspects of natural history. Many embryologists, for example, continue to use the name "Amblystoma punctatum" (Ambystoma maculatum) decades after it has become obsolete. In a paper written by Fry et al., one of the junior authors is a taxonomist even though the senior author is a pharmacologist. The nomenclature used in this paper is pretty current, albeit not widely accepted. For example, this paper used the name "Coelognathus radiatus" even though many, if not most, people still refer to this species as Elaphe radiata. In general, I find that cladistic or Hennigian taxonomists generally accept most taxonomic proposals by other cladists. The Darwinians tend to ignore most of the cladistic taxonomic proposals, and the herpetoculturists and most papers written by grad students simply follow the latest proposals regardless of merit (or lack thereof).

Taxonomy is not science. There is room for disagreement with a particular taxonomic arrangement even though there is little or even no disagreement with the scientific data on which the taxonomic arrangement is based. For example, looking at the tree of Moriarty and Cannatella (in press), Hyla regilla and Hyla cadaverina both are outside of the group of species traditionally referred to as Pseudacris. Therefore these two species of Hyla can be retained in Hyla, contra Moriarty and Cannatella's preferred taxonomic arrangement which put both of these inside Psuedacris.

A Darwinian and a cladist will classify organisms differently even though both of them are looking at the same tree. A Darwinian will accept paraphyletic taxa if they are morphologically homogeneous in order to promote taxonomic stability. A cladist will disqualify paraphyletic taxa because of his/her ideology and replace them with numerous contrived higher taxa that cannot be distinguished from each other morphologically. For example, because the genus Elaphe is paraphyletic, a cladist who is intolerant of paraphyly has transferred members of Elaphe to about a dozen contrived genera (such as Euprepiophis, Pantherophis, and Pseudelaphe) which are morphologically indistinguishable from one another and from Elaphe.

Such taxonomic proposals do not do any good because they make biological communication and information retrieval (the main reasons why humans classify organisms) more difficult and at the same time they obscure evolutionary relationships. Under the traditional arrangement, we can be reasonably sure that Elaphe obsoleta and Elaphe flavirufa are closely related to each other and to Elaphe scalaris. We have no such assurance with the new taxonomic arrangement. We do not know if "Pseudelaphe flavirufa" is really more closely related to Coluber or Drymarchon or whether "Pantherophis obsoletus" is really more closely related to Ptyas or to Masticophis than it is to Elaphe.

"I do not have any experience in the field, and cannot comment on field research, and I am not capable (yet) of writing my own reports."

If you had taken any high school or college science classes, then you already have training in writing technical papers because scientific papers closely resemble the lab reports most biology, chemistry and physics students have to write. The formats are very similar. Scientific papers, except the really short ones, consist of an introductory section, followed by a section on methods and materials. This is then followed by a results section, in which only the results are presented. Finally a conclusion or discussion section offers the interpretation of the results by the author or authors. This is done so that the results are not colored by the interpretations of the authors, so that other scientists or readers of the paper can come to their own conclusions based on the results. Surprisingly, the conclusion or discussion section of a paper is often the weakest part of many scientific papers. Some authors often do not realize the importance of their own investigations and sometimes even misinterpret their own results. Scientific writing, unlike creative writing, should be concise and devoid of "flowery language." The one difference between lab reports and scientific papers is the Literature Cited or Reference section. This is where one lists the published papers one cited within the report. High school and college lab reports often do not need this section.

"However, if I revised A.Tokar's paper on Eryx jaculus, who should I send it to? And who would be the 'moderators'? Also, if those particular people disagreed, does it make my report wrong?"

Often the referees themselves do not verify the findings of a particular author. They simply read the paper and sometimes judge the validity of the findings from their own experience. Therefore often the author's claims concerning particular morphological characters being found in a particular taxon, though erroneous, are not detected by the peer-review process. Sometimes taxonomic proposals that are based on erroneous observations remain unchallenged until someone actually try to verify these observations. Therefore do not treat the peer-review process as evidence that the facts presented in a paper has been verified by the reviewers prior to publication. If you find that the claims made by an author is erroneous, you can certainly point this out, either by writing a letter to the editor of the journal or try to publish your own findings in the same or in another journal. However, if you disagree with the taxonomic arrangements made by the author because of a difference in philosophy (e.g. cladistic vs. Darwinian) then it is doubtful that your disagreements will get published.

"Also, if somebody revise's a particular taxon, when does it actually become valid?"

When faced with a taxonomic proposal, ask why questions. For example, why did the author make the proposal? Is it because new data shows that an old taxon is polyphyletic? Is it because data shows that a monophyletic taxon is morphologically heterogeneous? Is it because the author is intolerant of paraphyletic taxa? Are the facts presented in the paper accurate? If the facts are accurate, and if an old taxon has been shown to be polyphyletic, then most scientists will accept the proposal. If the facts are in dispute then acceptance of the new arrangement will likely be delayed. If the proposal is based on an intolerance of paraphyletic taxa, then it is likely to meet with great resistence. For example, the lizard family Agamidae is thought to be paraphyletic, therefore Frost and Etheridge proposed that it be combined with the Chamaeleonidae into a single family. The resultant family is heterogeneous and because of the rules of the ICZN, the combined families carry the name Chamaeleonidae. All of a sudden, an agamid lizard that is morphologically similar to an iguanid lizard is now a "chamaelonid" or a "chamaelon." Needless to say, it creates confusion among not only amateurs but also among scientists. As a result, Frost and Etheridge's ideologically based taxonomic proposal found acceptance only among the cladistic fundamentalists. Ten years later, this proposal has been rejected completely since even Frost et al. have accepted Macey's proposal to recognize the Agamidae and Chamaeleonidae as distinct and separate families.

Therefore, it is not always a good idea to follow the latest taxonomic proposals. It is best if one can judge the merits of the proposals personally. If not, it is a good idea to consult the opinions of those who are knowledgeable, either directly or via publications. Ask the knowledgeable not only whether a new proposal is or is not acceptable but also why it is or is not acceptable.

know if you find anything out... Because the whole issue has me very confused. A little off topic, have you found 'The Living Boas' to be a good reference for people who don't know what the heck sort of sand boas they've ended up with?
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

The Living Boas is a poor guide to sand boas. Infact, some of the pictures are actually mis-represeting specific species. The author has written a book on boas in general, and no-body can have researched each family of boas thoroughly, so there is likely to be mistakes. In terms of sand boas, I am learning with my own specimens, and from past papers written by various people.

Aw great... ... ... I've heard stuff like that about TFH books. Well, you just saved me 40$! I'm just going to email you some detailed photos, you seem to be the only one who has this stuff figured out.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?