[Taxacom] DNA only descriptions

[Stephen Thorpe]

perhaps part of the problem is one of "division of labour"? Ultimately, 
everything in this area is grounded in DESCRIPTIVE taxonomy, which is not a 
fundamentally hypothesis-driven science, but more like mapping the geography of 
the world. The problem seems to be that this purely descriptive task is being 
increasingly devalued, despite being the basis for everything else. We need BOTH 
descriptive taxonomists AND systematists, the latter taking the raw output from 
the former and doing hypothesis-driven science on it. I doubt that any one 
person can do both jobs effectively as they require a very different skill set 
...




________________________________
From: Emily Gillespie <emilylgillespie at gmail.com>
To: Sergio Vargas <sevragorgia at gmail.com>
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Fri, 20 August, 2010 8:56:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] DNA only descriptions

This has been a most interesting thread. The last handful of posts are
revealing:

1) We are all happy to have as many different data sources as possible.
True. In many cases, you will not be able to hypothesize relationships
without considering all data.

2) 'traditional taxonomists are happy to have molecules'... 'Happy to
*have*' seems to imply that some molecular systematist will be kindly
generating those data for a 'traditional' systematist to *have*.  Good
enough, but I have not heard criticism directed toward morphologists (or
biochemists or paleontologists...) failing to include molecular (or
ecophysiological or biogeographical, etc) data in their studies.

3) '...but molecular guys doesn't (sic) even try to include
morphology...'  This is really not true across the board. Just like some
people are strictly in morphology only, some people focus on molecules. Some
people quite successfully combine the two. I see no greater problem with
molecular folks focusing on one kind of data than morphological folks
focusing on one kind of data. Eventually it must all get included in some
'big picture' idea of evolution, yes?

4) 'cladistic' does not refer to morphological data while 'phylogenetic'
refers to molecular data. In the modern sense, they are essentially the same
approach and can (and should) be applied to both (and other) kinds of data
wherever the assumptions are met or can be properly dealt with.

A properly conducted molecular taxonomic study is every bit as demanding as
a properly conducted morphological study. There appears to be an
undercurrent of 'molecular is easier' and this is really quite mistaken IF
you do it well. By criticizing every molecular-only study, you are demanding
that every molecular researcher essentially carry out two high-quality
studies. Are you prepared to demand the same from every morphologist? I
would prefer folks do whatever they find most intriguing as well as they
possibly can, and I would be delighted if some handy morphologist wanted to
collaborate in my group (hint, hint).

eg




On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Sergio Vargas <sevragorgia at gmail.com>wrote:

> sure!
>
> I think we all are in the same team, and that after years of molecular
> vs morphology we are somewhat close to understand we need ALL possible
> sources of information to describe organisms. I meant, "traditional"
> taxonomists seem to be happy to have molecules but molecular guys
> doesn't even try to include morphology in their analyses... just a
> perception I guess...
>
> sergio
>
> --
> Sergio Vargas R., M.Sc.
> Molecular Geo- and Palaeobiology Lab.
> Dept. of Geo- & Environmental Sciences, Palaeontology and Geobiology
> LMU München
> Richard-Wagner Str. 10
> 80333 Munich, Germany
> tel. +49 89 2180 17929
> s.vargas at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
> sergio.vargasr at ecci.ucr.ac.cr
>
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-- 
Emily Gillespie, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Department of Biology
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, NC

gillesel at wfu.edu
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