Rather than asking, 'Is it the same as the type?', the more
fundamental question to be asked is, 'What do we intend by relating
the characters of organisms to 'species'? Until this latter question
is answered, and is agreed upon by all biologists, the claim that one
can limit the 'identification of species' to a barcoding approach
will at a minimum be fallacious. Barcoding becomes even more
problematic if species do not themselves have the ontological
standing of individuals. If species are not individuals, but rather
refer to hypotheses, in the same way that all supraspecific taxa are
hypotheses, then not considering all available relevant evidence in
the inference of species leaves those hypotheses suspect. One could
also question the approach of applying phylogenetic methods to
species, given that species refer to the actions hybridization among
organisms, not perpetual branching, unless one is referring to
obligate asexual, parthenogenetic, and self-fertilizing modes of
reproduction (in which case any notion of 'species' might not even be
applicable). So, it is reasonable that we should continue to call
into question the rising popularity of barcoding, when sound
justification for such an approach is lacking.
Kirk
At 11:13 PM 4/17/2007, Rob Blakemore wrote:
>This is also the key issue with barcoding: you may
>get similarity or dissimilarity but the real question, as always, is:
>Is it the same as the type?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J. Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D.
Curator of Polychaetes
Invertebrate Zoology Section
Research & Collections Branch
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90007
Phone: 213-763-3233
FAX: 213-746-2999
e-mail: kfitzhug from nhm.orghttp://www.nhm.org/research/annelida/staff.htmlhttp://www.nhm.org/research/annelida/index.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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