Hello,
This commentary is being discussed. Personally I tend to agree with the outsiders that traditional descriptive taxonomy has a weak claim to be real science. Soon only molecular taxonomists will exist. This is not a bad thing as long as they can also handle and include organism phenotype descriptions. Many can't at the moment. I worry more about the problems with the Zoological Code, and lack of consensus on the way forward, and the energy wasted on futility of archaisms such as gender agreement, minutiae of revisionism in publication dates, obscure priorities, and especially keeping to print-only validity of names, and not registering all new names, than the issues raised here. Politics is everywhere.
Boero F 2010. The Study of Species in the Era of Biodiversity: A Tale of Stupidity. Diversity 2: 115-126.
[Open access]
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/d2010115http://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/2/1/115
Geoff
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Geoff Read <g.read from niwa.co.nz>
http://www.annelida.net/http://www.niwa.co.nz/about-niwa
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