[Taxacom] more confusion over Costello et al. (online, 2011)

[Stephen Thorpe]

This new paper: 
?
Samyn, Y.; De Clerck, O. 2012: No name, no game. European journal of taxonomy, (10): 1-3. doi: 10.5852/ejt.2012.10
?
cites Costello et al. (online 2011), just for the following issue: [quote]Contradicting the findings of Joppa et al. (2011) and using a much broader taxon sampling, which includes many poorly studied groups, Costello et al. (2011) observe that species description has roughly remained constant since the second World War, at least for terrestrial species.[unquote]
?
Well I can't say what Costello et al. "observe", but?this is?what they said (in the abstract): [quote]We found that trends in the rate of description of 580,000 marine and terrestrial species, in the taxonomically authoritative World Register of Marine Species and Catalogue of Life databases, were similar until the 1950s. Since then, the relative number of marine to terrestrial species described per year has increased, reflecting the less explored nature of the oceans. From the mid-19th century, the cumulative number of species described has been linear, with the highest number of species described in the decade of 1900, and fewer species described and fewer authors active during the World Wars. There were more authors describing species since the 1960s, indicating greater taxonomic effort. There were fewer species described per author since the 1920s, suggesting it has become more difficult to discover new species.[unquote]
?
They (Costello et al.) do say: [quote]Following the World Wars, the number of species described [per year?]?increased, and continued to increase after the 1950s for marine, but not other species[unquote]
?
Is it just me, or does none of this make any real sense?? If, as it is claimed,?it has become more difficult to discover new species (based on rates of species description), then the number of species described per year cannot have increased, nor even stayed constant, but must have decreased significantly!! Since the rate of description of marine species has allegedly increased, the rate of description of terrestrial species must have decreased markedly for this to make any sense!!
?
To go back to [quote]There were fewer species described per author since the 1920s, suggesting it has become more difficult to discover new species.[unquote]. This is surely a confusion? If they meant per year, rather than per author, then it might be a valid inference, but if they really do mean per author, then that could just be because there are more authors, each describing fewer species, which says absolutely nothing about how hard or otherwise it has become to?discover new species!
?
Again, it must be noted that CoL is least "taxonomically authoritative" for terrestrial taxa, and this data bias is highly relevant to the present issue!
?
The real issue here is about citation. You can't just go citing publications will nilly for things that it isn't even at all clear they?said! Since citation is used as a value measure for publications (which it shouldn't be), citations should only be made?after careful consideration ...?
?
Stephen