Reptile & Amphibian Forums

WW wrote:

'Check out the following publication for more detail:
WÜSTER, W., B. BUSH, J.S. KEOGH, M. O'SHEA & R. SHINE (2001) Taxonomic contributions in the "amateur" literature: comments on recent descriptions ofnew genera and species by Raymond Hoser. Litteratura Serpentium, 21(3): 67-79, 86-91.'

I checked out this article and I do agree with some of Wuster et al.'s criticism of Hoser's taxonomic practice.

Hoser did follow the rules of the ICZN in naming his new taxa, although Wuster et al. pointed out that he made many mistakes forming the names properly. The bulk of Wuster et al.'s criticism properly concentrated on Hoser's lack of scientific data in support of his proposals. I agree with Wuster et al. that taxonomic proposals do require considerable support from scientific data in order to be accepted. However I disagree that the problem can be solved by restricting the publication of taxonomic proposals to peer-reviewed journals. I therefore disagree with Wuster et al.’s “solution” for the following reasons:

Firstly, there is no provision under the rules of the ICZN that taxonomic proposals must be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals or even scientific journals. In fact, taxonomic proposals can be published in book form and many of the most familiar names of American herps were originally published in books, not scientific journals. Wuster et al.'s suggestion that taxonomic proposals be banished from "amateur" publications cannot be enforced. Of course, Hoser or anyone can publish their proposal in book form and be in compliance with the rules of the ICZN.

Secondly, the peer-review process is not one that confirms the validity of the data presented. Therefore mistakes have been and will continue to be made in the gathering and presentation of data, even in peer-reviewed journals.

Thirdly, the type of evidence-free taxonomic proposals made by Hoser has recently appeared in scientific journals as well. One such proposal was made by Collins (1991) in Herpetological Review. Collins was criticized by many herpetologists, including H. G. Dowling, who calls Collins' proposal '"without legal status (“incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial”: Dunn and Stuart 1951b), and do not consider it a constructive effort in herpetological taxonomy.'

As Dowling puts it, 'Certainly, a group of "specialists" (or any other group sitting at a bar), or any author alone can determine how he/she will treat a taxon in their own publications (e.g., Lazell 1972). This, however, gives no additional validity to that usage; again it is the substantiation of this change by the provision of data, and the acceptance of this as adequate by other herpetologists, that count.'

Therefore, the proper way to deal with the type of evidence-free taxonomic proposals made by Hoser and Collins is to reject them. Banning them does not work because they are not invalid under the rules of the ICZN. Ironically Wuster himself accepts one of Collins' taxonomic proposals, specifically the elevation of the Florida subspecies of Drymarchon to species status despite the fact that no evidence is presented by Collins to support his proposal!

Wuster et al. also criticized Hoser for not following the taxonomic arrangements of other authors. However, I disagree with Wuster et al. on this point since their criticism has more to do with ideology than scientific methodology. For example, Wuster et al. claim that because “...Kluge (1993) proposed a new generic arrangement for pythons, based on his phylogenetic analysis of 121 behavioural and morphological characters. It would therefore be normal practice for further studies of python systematics to follow that arrangement, unless they provide strong evidence contradicting Kluge’s findings.” Wuster et al. have apparently conflated systematics and taxonomy. Systematics is the science of discovering evolutionary relationships through the collection of scientific evidence. Taxonomy, however, is not a science. Taxonomy cannot be falsified, even though taxonomists of all schools do reject taxa that are polyphyletic since the publication of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even though one may agree with Kluge’s phylogenetic hypothesis, one does not have to follow Kluge’s taxonomic practice. Kluge is a cladist, and he is intolerant of paraphyletic taxa. A Darwinian who disagrees with Kluge’s taxonomy can indeed recognize Chondropython as a valid genus even though Kluge had sunk it back into Morelia because of his intolerance of paraphyly. Therefore I believe that Wuster et al. unfairly criticized Hoser for not conforming to cladistic ideology. Taxonomic proposals are just that, proposals, and no one has to follow Kluge or anyone else’s proposal.

In conclusion, the problem with Hoser’s taxonomic proposal is the same as that of Collins’ proposal. In both cases, no scientific evidence is cited to justify the proposals. The proper way to deal with evidence-free proposals is to reject or ignore them, not to ban them from publication, since it is not possible to do so in a free society.

Unfortunately, some taxonomists have categorically ignored taxonomic proposals made in so-called "amateur" journals. For example, considerable debate (sometimes acrimonious) has centered on David Spiteri's revision of the rosy boa, Lichanura trivirgata.

Crother, for example, wrote:

"The status of the three subspecies in the U.S. (and additional extralimital taxa) is unclear. Spiteri (1988, Southwest. Herpetol. Soc. Spec. Pub. 4: 113-130) reevaluated subspecies within Lichanura trivirgata using morphological data, resulting in an arrangement of subspecies different from that listed below. Spiteri's taxonomic arrangement has largely been ignored except in pet hobbyist literature and is not followed here."

Since no reason is given for Crother's rejection of Spiteri's taxonomic proposal, one can only infer from what is written that it is perhaps not being followed because it was made in a publication that is aimed at the "pet hobbyists."

Ignoring Spiteri's scientific evidence supporting his taxonomic proposal is a practice no different than Hoser and Collins' practices of not presenting scientific evidence in their taxonomic proposals. Therefore to categorically ignore taxonomic proposals made in "amateur" publications regardless of scientific merit is no different than making evidence-free taxonomic proposals, because in both practices, scientific evidence is ignored.
Crother's comment

Reading the previous posts, an uninformed person may be led to believe that I literally invented names for non-taxa out of a hat.
To the previous person and others interested, you'll find that my taxonomic changes are based on evidence and that is clearly spelt out in the relevant papers and in part explains the rapid adoption of most of my changes and new names.
Notwithstanding this, if you or anyone else feels that there is not enough evidence and/or that I have placed too much weight on a given aspect, then you are free to not use my taxonomic changes on that or any other basis as you see fit.
I cannot and will not stop you.
By all means ignore (Hoser) species like Acanthophis wellsi and treat it as synonymous with A. pyrrhus as Storr and Cogger did, the latter still doing so, or treat Pailsus pailsi and P. rossignolli as merely a variant of "Pseudechis australis" as Wuster and Williams did on their recent PNG field trip report on their site.
Others will also look at the evidence including some I may have missed or failed to look at and in due course any confusion or misunderstandings will hopefully be ironed out.
By the way my papers are on the web at:
http://www.herp.net
Hopefully this post won't invite flames and in case I haven't made it clear, most of your other comments in terms of conclusions in your previous posts I agree with and because of this agreement I have not dwelt on that as I have on the point of difference.
ALL THE BEST

Another new species of large elapid - described 2003

Hi, biologists value taxonomic stability. Therefore unnecessary taxonomic changes have always met with a high degree of resistance. Such resistance is not limited to papers published in so-called amateur journals. Recent papers by Burbrink to split Elaphe obsoleta and Elaphe guttata have not been well receieved, even by those who otherwise support the evolutionary species concept, which is what Burbrink is using to split these species. Similarly, although Frost and Etheridge are splitting Iguanidae on the basis of cladistic methodology, not all cladists agree with their proposal. Therefore almost any sort of taxonomic proposal will be greeted with lots of skepticism. That said, I do believe that the proposals should be evaluated on a case by case basis, and that they be accepted or rejected on the basis of the strength of the scientific evidence, not on which particular venue the authors choose to publish the proposals.

`Reading the previous posts, an uninformed person may be led to believe that I literally invented names for non-taxa out of a hat.'

But little would they know that these names are actually drawn from your shoe.

Patrick Alexander

As far as scientific names are concerned, they can be taken out of hats, shoes or even out of the air, as long as they are latinized.

>>As far as scientific names are concerned, they can be taken out of hats, shoes or even out of the air, as long as they are latinized.

You will find that they are usually taken out of his family album or address book. However, in any case, the names are about the least of our worries about his taxonomy.

Cheers,

WW
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WW Home

I agree that names are unimportant. It is the evidence that counts. If there is little or no evidence for a proposed change or if the change does not do any good (e.g. to satisfy the ideological intolerance of parpahyletic taxa) then the proposal ought to be rejected.

Hi folks,

CKing wrote:

I agree that names are unimportant. It is the evidence that counts. If there is little or no evidence for a proposed change or if the change does not do any good (e.g. to satisfy the ideological intolerance of parpahyletic taxa) then the proposal ought to be rejected.

Well, names aren' that important, right. But when it comes to rejecting taxa introduced in papers without any evidence it sure is a bit more complicated.
If the paper (even hardly) meets the recommendations of the code of the ICZN the paper must be seen as "published" and therefore the names are available. Though it is still questionable if these taxa are biological valid entities or not.
You can put them to synonymy, you can revist the taxa and come up with other conclusions, but you can not just ignore them. But on the other hand how can available names and therefore taxa be rejected without subsequent work on these? They can't!

This in my opinion is one of the gaps in the ICZN code, as these rules are easy to come by with but on the other hand there is no quality check. This might have been ok for long time, as usually only professional scientists wrote taxonomic articles, but today everybody can write such a paper introducing new taxa and as long as they stick to the code these will be available if not suppressed by others.

But there should be no acceptance nor apologies for sloppy work or faked analysis, but as this is not checked or overlooked in "amature" journals, every bugger can introduce new taxa at every time without providing evidence. It is therefore my opinion that taxonomic papers should only be accepted in peer-reviewed journals as this grants a certain quality.

my 5 cents...

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

It is not a question of whether professionals or amateurs are writing them or whether the papers are published in peer-reviewed journals or not. Many so-called amateur journals are edited by knowledgeable herpetologists, and the papers submitted are quality checked as well as high quality. Regardless of where a paper may be published, sometimes the material on which a new taxon is based is so poorly preserved or fragmentary (in case of fossils) that it is difficult to determine whether the names attached to such material is valid or not.

Restricting publication of taxonomic papers to peer-reviewed journals is not a panacea. There are plenty of taxonomic proposals published in peer-reviewed journals with which I disagree strongly. Quite often these are written by molecular systematists with cladistic ideology. The taxa they delimit cannot be easily defined or are undefinable simply because molecules evolve independently of morphology and because cladistically delimited taxa do not take into account morphological disparity or similarities. This can present problems in groups in which there are different rates of evolutionary change. Slowly changing species as a group are often paraphyletic with respect to faster evolving species. Yet these slowly evolving species which closely resemble each other and their common ancestor are often splintered into different genera in order to avoid recognizing paraphyletic taxa. The result are poorly defined taxa that make for controversial taxonomic proposals.

Evidence-free or poorly conceived taxonomic proposals are not by any means restricted to amateur publications, in contrast there are some quite sophisticated taxonomic papers published in so-called amateur journals by grad students and seasoned herpetologists alike. There is no simple line that can be drawn to distinguish so-called "amateur" journals from peer-reviewed journals. Try instead to verify the facts and do not assume that the peer-review process is a substitution for the independent verification of the facts presented. It is not.

I would like to make a few points.

First up I will acknowledge I have not read the paper as yet (I would like a copy if someone can send a reprint of it) but my comments are more on other facets that have been brought up.

Ignoring names that meet the requirements of the ICZN is not an option. This cannot be done under strict application of the rules as the names if valid are Available and must be used. The alternative is to refute them. So disagree with the names all you like, "Refute or Accept". That is publish a valid refutation of the taxon to which the name applies.

Second I also agree that taxonomic changes should be restricted to specific journals. However I acknowledge that the ICZN does not support this. This is something that I feel should be addressed by the ICZN and I would even go as far as a list of "accepted" journals. However I acknowledge that is possibly being too pedantic.

How names are formulated is irrelevant and they only have to use the "Latin Alphabet" under the rules, not be latinised. One of the species I described was Elseya nadibajagu which is aboriginal for "From a long time ago" (its a fossil, 6 million years old). This is not a Latinised name at all, it just uses the Latin Alphabet. I have my own preferences and pet hates (I dislike naming species after people - even though I have done this twice) however, preferences have nothing to do with it. You will never see me complaign about what someone calls something as long as its not stupid.

I am the first to agree that taxonomic changes should not be possible without substantial eveidence. I too have seen some really shoddy work in so called peer reviewed journals. By people whom I thought would know better. As well as some stuff that should never have been published and in the wrong place.

I consider the ignorance of valid names by so called "professionals" to be as big a crime in taxonomy as those who published the names in the first place. As I said "refute it or accept it" if anyone has that much of an opinion then they can publish a refutation. If not use the name. It is refusal by some, for whatever reason, and use by others that causes so much confusion.

Another example is the genus name "Macrochelodina" this name was not used for no valid reason, everyone just assumed it was invalid because Wells and Wellington described it. Yet they were willing to use so many other names from the same publication (after the ten odd years of complaining about it). Iverson et al., 2001 demonstrated it is a valid name for the expansa group of long necks. It was therefore accepted. Basically here is a definable group of turtles. They are separated by a decided gap from other groups as has been demonstrated many times. It has now been shown to have a name. Yet people are still refusing to use it because they do not want to use any Wells and Wellington name? Because its inconvenient if their latest edition of Cogger calls them Chelodina. Its not that difficult people.

So my point here is that this argument swings both ways, I think there are plenty of "professionals" that are using the "amature" label as a crutch to their own opinions. That is not science.

Nomenclature is pretty black and white. There are a set of rules. Apply them, if the name is valid, use it, if not reject it. If you don't like it.... well I don't recall that being in the rules.

Cheers, Scott
Carettochelys.com

Scott Thomson wrote:

"Ignoring names that meet the requirements of the ICZN is not an option. This cannot be done under strict application of the rules as the names if valid are Available and must be used. The alternative is to refute them. So disagree with the names all you like, 'Refute or Accept'. That is publish a valid refutation of the taxon to which the name applies."

Ignoring taxonomic proposals is indeed an option. For example, Kluge proposed that the genus Chondropython should be synonymized with the genus Morelia because recognizing Chondropython renders Morelia paraphyletic. Both names are available under the rules of the ICZN, but I disagree with Kluge's proposal because it is based on an intolerance of paraphyletic taxa. Such disagreements are based on classificatory philosophy and are well known among taxonomists. Therefore it is unlikely that my disagreemnt with Kluge will be published in a journal. Nevertheless nobody is required by the ICZN to follow Kluge's taxonomic proposal nor is anyone required to publish a paper refuting Kluge. The customary practice is for each person to review the evidence presented by an author and to either accept or reject the proposal based on one's own evaluation of the evidence.

"Second I also agree that taxonomic changes should be restricted to specific journals. However I acknowledge that the ICZN does not support this. This is something that I feel should be addressed by the ICZN and I would even go as far as a list of 'accepted' journals."

Quite correct. The ICZN does not have a list of such accepted journals because such a list would be outdated as soon as it is published. New journals can come into existence at any time. The purpose of the ICZN is not to judge the quality of scientific journals or to discriminate against new journals. The ICZN would be seen as doing both if they maintain a list of journals in which taxonomic proposals must be published.

"How names are formulated is irrelevant and they only have to use the 'Latin Alphabet' under the rules, not be latinised. One of the species I described was Elseya nadibajagu which is aboriginal for 'From a long time ago' (its a fossil, 6 million years old). This is not a Latinised name at all, it just uses the Latin Alphabet."

You are quite correct. I stand corrected. According to the ICZN, any word can be used. However, the ICZN's draft for the 4th edition contains the following:

'Recommendation 11D. Use of vernacular names.- An unmodified vernacular word should not be used as a scientific name. Appropriate latinization is the preferred means of modification.'

"Nomenclature is pretty black and white. There are a set of rules. Apply them, if the name is valid, use it, if not reject it. If you don't like it.... well I don't recall that being in the rules."

The rules cannot be used to settle taxonomic disputes between different schools of taxonomy, such as those between the Hennigians and the Darwinians. The rules are silent on the acceptability of paraphyletic taxa and will likely remain so forever. Therefore there is nothing in the rules that would require anyone to splinter paraphyletic taxa nor is there anything in the rules that requires anyone to follow taxonomic proposals that are meant to disqualify or destroy paraphyletic taxa. Conversely, no Hennigian is required by the rules to accept paraphyletic taxa. However, the stated purpose of the ICZN is to promote taxonomic stability. Hence one can very well argue that the stated purpose and the very existence of the ICZN are both contradictory to the taxonomic instability that is the direct result of the Hennigian's intolerance of paraphyletic taxa.