Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Wulf wrote:

"Well, I must admit that I get sick of Ray's taxonomic papers and of his names! More than one species or genus is named after his wife. Guess that must be real love.

Anyway, I guess Ray's intension is to see his name in the synonymy list of every single species or so...

Someone should open up a case and have the papers supressed by the ICZN."

I think the frustration with unnecessary taxonomic proposals is widespread because there was a recommendation in the draft for the 4th edition of the code that attempts to limit such proposals.

The recommendation reads, according to the web site below:

http://maze.ruca.ua.ac.be/EvolutionaryBiology/coll/doc/iczn4txt.htm

"Recommendation 8A. Wide dissemination.- As well as being obliged to ensure that new names proposed by them after 1996 are entered into the Zoological Record (see Article 11b), authors have a responsibility to ensure that new scientific names, nomenclatural acts, and information likely to affect nomenclature are made widely known. This responsibility is most easily discharged by publication in appropriate scientific journals or well-known monographic series."

Such a recommendation would have restricted taxonomic proposals to the pages of scientific journals. Presumably the peer review process could have been used to prevent many unnecessary (in the minds of the reviewers) taxonomic proposals from ever seeing the light of day. However, such a recommendation would have given scientific journal editors and reviewers too much power over taxonomic matters. Many legitimate proposals could have been rejected because of reasons other than soundness or merit. Hence it is not surprising that, in the end, this recommendation was rejected. See, for example, the following web site:

http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=zoological+record+iczn&ei=UTF-8&cop=mss&u=www.biosis.org/products_services/newn_zr.html&w=zoological+record+iczn&d=7FC0116749&icp=1

"An earlier discussion draft of the new 4th edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, originally due to take formal effect in January 1997, included newly proposed requirements for the effective registration of new scientific names of animals by their inclusion in the Zoological Record. At a meeting of the Code Editorial Committee in Vicenza, Italy, 24-30 June 1996, this proposal was rejected and a new amended draft was prepared for submission to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) during the IUBS meeting in Budapest, August 1996. The new 4th edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature took effect from 1 January 2000."

Although unnecessary taxonomic proposals present a nuisance of sorts for taxonomists and the scientific community at large, the alternative of restricting them appear far worse. Hence it is unlikely that the ICZN would suppress taxonomic proposals based on their scientific merit. The rejection (or acceptance) of such proposals will still depend on usage and (hopefully) their evaluation by individual zoologists on the basis of scientific merit.

Hi CKing,

well, it's just a recommendation, not a requirement!
And as far as I know Ray, he sent his paper to a lot of libraries and published it in different highly frequented discussion boards.
Further discussion about "Wide dissemination" by Ray can be found at http://www.herpbreeder.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=145

Ray (usually) strongly sticks to the requirements of the code to make sure that everything is formally OK.
Acceptance of his proposals or not is another question. Once published and not supressed, the names are available (at least as synonym) and have to be used (according to the code)if its the oldest synonym available.

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

If he conforms closely with the Code, then there is very little anyone can do to suppress his names using the ICZN. The names he prosposes must therefore be judged on the basis of their scientific merit. If there isn't any data to support the new names, these proposals can simply be ignored. I understand that there is a good chance that Ray Hoser can luck out and one of the taxa he names will be considered valid by newly discovered data. In that case, someone would indeed have to use his name. That of course is annoying since it deprives the researcher who does the hard work the increasingly rare chance to name a new taxon. But then again, some researchers have had similar bad luck because some museum workers somewhere in the world had given a name to a pickled specimen simply because it looks different from other specimens in the collection. Their methodology is in fact little different than Ray Hoser's or for that matter, the methodology of the late E.H. Taylor of the Univ. of Kansas.

There simply is unfortunately no way around the inconvenience of having to deal with synonyms. Changing the rules of the ICZN is not a cure for "Taylor taxonomy," the practitioners of which simply name new species on the basis of a difference in the appearance of as few as a single specimen.

Regards.