uBio & Free taxonomic information

[Doug Yanega]

Richard wrote:

>My reluctance to jump into this fray is exceeded only by my distain for
>miscommunication leading to highly unproductive and skewed dialog on this
>list.  It may well be that I am the only one here who is missing the point;
>but in case I'm not, I'd like to take a shot at clearing up the perceptions
>of others who, from my perspective, seem to be the ones who are missing the
>point.

A point which, if your version is accurate, was not (at least not to
me) made clearly until now.

>As I understand it, uBio is about mapping names to relevant published
>information, and also mapping names to other names; NOT (as some seem to
>think) about mapping names to taxonomic concepts.  It is intended as a
>thesaurus in the literal sense -- linking text strings to other text
>strings -- not distinguishing valid taxonomic concepts from invalid
>taxonomic concepts.

But if it doesn't make that distinction, then it simply helps a
larger audience of non-taxonomist users make mistakes confounding one
for the other. Sure, it's a nice thing to be able to look up every
reference to "Aus bus" through history, but if someone revised Aus in
1990 so there are now 3 species where there used to be one, then
unless you're flagging all references to "Aus bus" with a warning
that all records before 1990 are potentially erroneous, there's going
to be a lot of people
working with an outdated concept and not realizing it. You're
assuming that these warnings and red flags would be built into the
system, I'm assuming that they can only be built into the system if
the system is built by taxonomists. It's the same problem with
databasing old museum specimens: if no one has examined the specimens
in 50 or 100 years, who's to know whether the names on the labels are
correct according to modern opinion? Sure, I love the idea of museum
databasing - I engage in the practice myself - but ONLY for material
which has been examined recently by an expert taxonomist. I find it
hard to be in favor of any information management approach that
cannot distinguish the good from the bad.

>It all depends on the delivery and presentation.  Instead of listing gobs of
>confusing text and literature citations, you could display the "stability"
>factor of the name over time, and very quickly give the sense to a lay
>person whether the name is currently in the midst controversy, or stabilized
some decades ago.

That seems like a tall order for anyone besides a revisionary
taxonomist to accomplish: it takes a lot of research to know which
name combinations have been used to represent a given taxon
throughout its history.

>In order for a computer to recognize the difference between a text string
>that is a biological name and any other text string, the computer needs
>access to a list of text strings of known biological names.

This is obviously going to be problematic for most of the genera on
my web page - genus names like Box, Car, Chaos, Cylinder, etc. are
not exactly easy for a text-matching algorithm to recognize as being
biological names, are they?

>But that
>doesn't mean that the existence and subsequent refinement of such tools
>would be of much greater help to both taxonomists and layfolk, than they
>would hurt.

It hurts if it takes resources away from taxonomy. You claim that it
doesn't, and I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but I'm
not so sure. The implication is that the entities funding this
initiative would never give money if they knew it was being spent on
taxonomy, and that seems a little hard to accept.

>4) Can you successfully articulate an argument that the problems of homonymy
>and hopelessly confused synonymies outweigh the potential benefits such an
>index would have, both to taxonomists and to layfolk?

Perhaps, if it leads to uncritical acceptance and promulgation of
errors by layfolk that could have been avoided by consulting a
taxonomist. Perhaps, if it further marginalizes taxonomists and their
efforts.

>The point is, uBio is NOT trying to replace or otherwise devalue the efforts
>of taxonomists, in any way, shape, or form.

If it doesn't distinguish valid from invalid taxonomic concepts, as
you admit, then it appears to automatically and unavoidably devalue
the efforts of taxonomists.

>   Rather, it is trying both to
>make taxonomic information more easily accessible to non-taxonomists
>(something that would probably lead to an increased perception of the value
>of our field among average taxpayers), and also remove a lot of the tedium
>of taxonomic progress within our field by allowing instant access to large
>quantities of information, which would otherwise have required many hours of
>manual reading.

I guess here's where it's my turn to be skeptical: are we really
going to have every piece of scientific literature ever published in
history (not just taxonomic - ALL of the literature in existence
which might refer to biological names) scanned, digitized, and
converted into searchable text within the next few years? This seems
highly implausible to me, unless there are a few billion dollars and
armies of text scanner operators already hired and in place in the
world's libraries that no one's ever told me about. If there are
those kinds of resources around, then why can't we march them into
our museums to help curate and database our actual specimen holdings?

>To say that the
>uBio effort had some sort of moral obligation to include direct support for
>taxonomists is no different from saying that every ecological grant has a
>moral obligation to include direct support for taxonomists.

They DO.

>  Maybe they
>do....but that basically turns us into parasites -- existing only to serve
>the needs of others.

Lawyers are "parasites" by this definition as well, but they control
the commodity they deal in, and get paid well for it. Lawyers don't
normally give away legal advice for free, nor do people who attempt
to practice law without passing the bar exam get very far. This is
why I've repeatedly argued that taxonomists need to break away and
form their own professional society. Taxonomy can't simultaneously be
perceived as a valuable and specialized skill AND as something anyone
can do as a hobby. We see it as the former, non-taxonomists see it as
the latter. Change that, and the whole equation shifts in our favor.

>I realize that my perspective is not at all consistent with the popular view
>on this list, and I am bracing myself for the anticipated response.

Who says my opinion, or Chris', or Una's, are popular? We're just
among the outspoken ones - I don't think any of us suffer from
believing we're espousing *popular* beliefs. I'm still open to
persuasion, too, I'm just a bit more cynical/skeptical than average.
;-)

Peace,
--

Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82