[Taxacom] Caveat emptor (raw taxanomic data)

[Robin Leech]

An authority is someone who carries a black handcase, and who comes from
more than 50 miles away (80 km).
Robin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
To: "Karl Magnacca" <kmagnacca at wesleyan.edu>; <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 3:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Caveat emptor (raw taxanomic data)


well I guess that as a major contributor myself to a biodiversity 
information
source (Wikispecies) which attempts to be completely open and honest about 
data
quality, those others that trade on spurious greater authority really annoy 
me
...




________________________________
From: Karl Magnacca <kmagnacca at wesleyan.edu>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Cc: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
Sent: Thu, 26 August, 2010 7:34:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Caveat emptor (raw taxanomic data)

On Tue, 24 Aug 2010 Stephen Thorpe wrote:
> I suspect that some of the big funders and likely serious end users
> of biodiversity informatics databases want more than anything to
> avoid the need for 'Caveat emptor', and actually think that that
> is what they are funding/going to get. They want expertly vetted
> information which they can rely on, and use to make conservation/
> biosecurity management decisions etc.

Well of course everyone would *like* that. But no amount of wishing
is going to make it happen. I'd like it if morphological
taxonomists would not write descriptions that bear little
resemblance to their type specimens, just like I'd like it if
molecular systematists didn't misidentify their specimens. But both
things happen, and will continue to happen.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Hawaii-Hilo



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