Perhaps my comment goes beyond polychaetes and METAMERISM, but here it goes.
I do believe that ecology (and perhaps biology) is contaminated with wordy
jargon. My field is population dynamics, i.e. changes in population numbers:
one of the main problems is terminology. It is striking how while some
authors pursue the definition of ecological laws from concepts / theories /
hypotheses (in population dynamics) as the holy grail, there is no consensus
about what the basic term REGULATION stands for. The situation gets worse
for controversial terms like DENSITY DEPENDENCE despite its use has rocketed
in the ecological literature during the last 20 years.
I sometimes think that a taxonomy of concepts is required in ecology (and
perhaps biology), where the acceptance and validity of terms should be
subjected to rules and authorship.
Terminological consensus is required at the expense of individual egos, and
across disciplines and research approaches (theoretical versus empirical, or
pure versus applied science). The tax we pay for lack of terminological
consensus is lack of communication.
Salva
Salvador Herrando-Pérez
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, SA 5005,
Australia
Office phone: +61 8 8303 5254 / Office fax: +61 8 8303 4347 / Mobile phone:
+61 406049010
<https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/salvador.herrando-perez>
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/salvador.herrando-perez /
salvador.herrando-perez from adelaide.edu.au
From: annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu
[mailto:annelida-bounces from oat.bio.indiana.edu] On Behalf Of J. Kirk Fitzhugh
Sent: 12 November 2008 12:16
To: annelida
Subject: Re: [Annelida] metamerism
It's all relative. While what gets published today might not be so steeped
in verbiage, it can be destitute of scientific merit. Yet, it gets printed.
...K
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
J. Kirk Fitzhugh, Ph.D.
Curator of Polychaetes
Invertebrate Zoology Section
Research & Collections Branch
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Geoff Read wrote:
Lankester's prose can be dense with neologisms. Try getting this (below)
into print today. (there are 13 of his metamerism laws).
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