[Taxacom] Automatic species identification: DNA only descriptions

[Stephen Thorpe]

>Alas in Taxacom there has been a tendency to identify these efforts as 
>DNA-based, when this assertion is clearly a fallacy

yes, but the other attempts at automated ID have clearly failed, leaving DNA as 
the only remaining "great white hope"

and when nobody but machines know how to do IDs, and they go wrong (as they 
will), who will know?

 

________________________________
From: Jason Mate <jfmate at hotmail.com>
To: Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Mon, 23 August, 2010 7:33:39 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Automatic species identification: DNA only descriptions


> > Whilst at the BMNH I remember at least 2 sepparate projects to automate 
>species identification. Both used morphology. The dream to automate 
>identification is pervasive and not the domain of one or another group. Whilst 
>it might be entertaining to identify organisms it is a practical matter of 
>workload management. "Never have so many asked so few to identify so much"
> 
> The current hype on automatic species identification circles around
> two myths: that it should be easier to build an automatic species
> identification system if DNA is used for the task, and that this
> identifier will be error-free.


Yes, but the point I was making is that regardless of the data-source you 
trust/believe-in, efforts, misguided or not, are afoot in accelerating 
identification. Alas in Taxacom there has been a tendency to identify these 
efforts as DNA-based, when this assertion is clearly a fallacy.


> 
> Among the many obvious problems:
> 
> 1. DNA makes thing easier sometimes and much more complicated some other 
times.
> 
> 2. Any identifier (even a human one) will be error prone.
> 
> 3. The decision on which method should be used for the assignment and
> how to deal with sensitivity to method choice is... a big issue.
> 
> The failure of most automatic identification systems seems to be that
> many people is hoping to have some kind of taxonomist droid capable of
> classifying whatever comes across... this hope is naive at best.
> Automatic classification is not an easy task. There are plenty of
> problems in automatic classification (whether supervised or
> unsupervised) that we biologists seem to ignore, I guess this is the
> root of over-optimism regarding automatic taxonomic classification.

We are moving away from the topic but I will humour you. The problems you have 
listed are applicable to pretty much anything just by substituting DNA and 
identifier for other nouns. Hence automatic identification is like any other 
activity you can imagine. That seems like an endorsement.

Now, is there an android in the horizon that can identify organisms like humans 
can? No. Will it ever happen? Yes, eventually the computing power of a laptop 
will match and then surpass us. Of course this will probably not affect you or I 
but it is entertaining to think of cybernetic taxonomists doing the donkey-work. 
At least the sorting :)

Best 


Jason
                        
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