[Taxacom] Paper on taxonomic standards in herpetology

[Raymond Hoser Snakeman Snakebusters Reptile Parties]

John, 


Wuster?s actions speak for themselves and are clearly
indicative of a mentally unstable and obsessive person in any objective
analysis.


Reference to the Accor Hotels fraud perpetrated by Wuster
and others is relevant in as much as it explains his lack of ethics in this
current fracas, where he is masquerading as a concerned taxonomist, when in
fact he has no genuine concern for the code as evidenced by his past papers and
countless false statements online and even on this forum.


His claims about my output belie the fact that I have been
working with reptiles for more than 40 years and with that amount of experience
have in fact earnt the right to classify reptiles according to the rules of the
code and if that includes assigning names to unnamed forms in line with the
rules, then so be it.


His claims about output within a given short time frame are meaningless
as the work involved generally preceded that by some years, not necessarily
measured in the form of published works.


In summary, when one cuts through the bulldust of Wuster,
Wuster?s sole grievance is that he does not want to have to use names for taxa
first proposed by his adversary.  He does
not want to recognize my foresight or herpetological work anywhere, because in
summary he lacks the professionalism to separate personal hatred from
professional science. He has himself stated this very fact on various forums
including ?Kingsnake.com? and a hate facebook page he sponsored in 2011 that
was called ?Ray Hoser Melbourne?s biggest wanker?.  His Kaiser et. al. rant is the last of a
series spanning more than a decade that have told people not to use Hoser
proposed names under any circumstances.


You will see that in 1998 to 2004 he ran the false claim I
had described ?non-taxa?, later mutated to a claim my publications were not
code complaint (see his Cobra fraud of 2009, AJH Issue 9).


The Kaiser 2012 and 2013 rants changed this to, Hoser?s
publications are in fact code complaint and because they arbitrarily don?t like
them, they now seek to tear up the rules of Zoological nomenclature and
boycott, not just Hoser names, but also those of Wells, Fitzinger, McCord, others
they have already identified by name and papers and reserve the right to add anyone
else they may care to steal work from at a later date.


Worse still they invite others outside herpetology to engage
in the same rule breaking to rename taxa as they see fit.


The issue is not my taxonomy as the code as it stands
protects quite adequately against any alleged taxonomic vandalism with the rules
of homonymy, priority and stability.  It
is in fact the very well-coordinated attack on the code itself currently being
executed by Wuster that should be discussed here and roundly condemned by all
here.


By the way the relevant currently online issue of AJH to
read is not those cited by Wuster, but rather issue 14, pages 37-64, online
here:


http://www.smuggled.com/AJHI14.pdf


>From that you will get a full idea of the level of intellect
(or lack of it) behind the false claims against myself and my papers as well as
Wuster?s complete lack of ethics and contempt for the established rules of
Zoological Nomenclature.

 PS I am going in the field for the next day, so non-answering of posts here shouldn't be taken to mean anything beyond that.
 
All the best
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Date: Fri, 17 May 2013 00:50:31 +1200
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paper on taxonomic standards in herpetology
From: calabar.john at gmail.com
To: viper007 at live.com.au
CC: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu

Characterizing someone as a mentally unstable person because they have been waging an "obsessive" 15 year campaign to get people not to recognize taxa and names assigned by another person has nothing to do with whether or not the person so characterized has a view of scientific merit. Neither does that person's financial dealings. This comes across as an effort to defame the person rather than rebut the science.

I have been characterized by other scientists as obsessive (or worse) simply for promoting panbiogeography and the orangutan theory of human origins so I am alert for such practices in other subject areas as well.


John Grehan


On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 11:10 AM, Raymond Hoser Snakeman Snakebusters Reptile Parties <viper007 at live.com.au> wrote:













Dear all, I don?t wish to derail the very important

discussions here about the Zoological Code and dealing with taxonomic vandalism

and I am reading the comments with interest.





However, it is important that I formally

divorce myself from any association with the practice as described by Wolfgang Wuster

herein.





It is in fact Wuster himself who is the

serial offender in this regard, as in engaging in taxonomic vandalism and actively

destabilizing Zoological nomenclature.





I note most recently he co-published Kaiser

et al. in a journal one of the authors is an editor in and controls and

maintains a close friendship with the chief editor, thereby (evidently) bypassing

any effective peer review or quality control and also at the same time

committing the most serious act of taxonomic vandalism imaginable, by in effect

renaming hundreds of taxa, many being placed in genera they had never been in and

to which they clearly should not be ? and without a shred of evidence. Worse still

they are telling others to do the same and for any other names and taxa they

see fit (see page 20).





As noted previously, a long response to that

has been published, which everyone here should read and contrary to Wuster?s

recent claim here, recent descriptions of taxa by myself published this year did

not have anything to do with the Kaiser rant (noting it was published by them

in similar form early last year, making their call to step outside the rules of

zoological nomenclature about a year old).





I do however cut and past abstracts of two

relevant papers here, so that you can see that Wuster does not in fact have a

genuine grievance about taxonomic vandalism or the code, but is instead a mentally

unstable person who has been waging an obsessive 15 year campaign to get people

not to recognize taxa and names assigned by myself (contrary to robust

evidence), engaged in criminal activity including fabricating ?votes? to

defraud a hotel chain of many thousands of dollars (for which himself and the

others were caught out) and so on.





With time, Wuster has lost the battle of evidence,

because the false claims were shown to be lacking in all important evidence and

in spite of countless publications telling people to never use ?Hoser names?, most

of my earliest names have come into general usage, due to the evidence, and in

spite of Wuster?s best efforts (e.g. Broghammerus, Leiopython hoserae, etc) and

the Kaiser rant (probably written in chief by Wuster) is in effect his

desperate last ditch attempt to attack both myself and the Zoological Code.





Let?s be clear here, neither myself or anyone

else identified so far poses a threat to the Zoological Code or nomenclatural stability,

except Wuster himself and his co-horts.





You will see from the evidence that his

co-author Van Wallach is also a serial offender and has already resorted to

ripping off and bootlegging the works and names of other herpetologists several

times, including Fitzinger names from the 1800?s, which if allowed to go

unheeded will set a precedent that will in effect destroy any and all stability

in names that the code brings.





It is for that reason I have made a

submission to the ICZN some time ago (last year and predating the first edition

of Kaiser et al) to put an end to the nefarious practices of Wuster and his

mates (whom I might add have lied about the extent of their support) and I note

that in correspondence received so far from the commissioners, the various

commissioners agree with my position.





All the best











Abstract (2013)











The science of herpetology is built on

evidence, ethics, quality publications and strict compliance with the rules of

nomenclature.

















This is a rebuttal of a dangerous and

dishonest blog by Hinrich Kaiser and eight other renegades.  These are Mark O?Shea, Wolfgang W?ster, Wulf

Schleip, Paulo Passos, Hidetoshi Ota, Luca Luiselli, Brian Crother and

Christopher Kelly. It was published in Herpetological

Review (Kaiser et al. 2013). The

journal is edited by one of the authors (Schleip) and the ?paper? evidently bypassed

all standard peer review and editorial quality control as outlined in the Society

for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles (SSAR) ethics statement (Anonymous

2013a), the SSAR being publisher.





Kaiser et al. make numerous false and defamatory statements against this

author (Raymond Hoser) as part of an obsessive 15-year campaign.





The claims made without evidence

against Hoser are in fact shown to be true for the accusers.





These include, ?evidence free

taxonomy?, fraud, ?unscientific taxonomic publications?, ?taxonomic terrorism?,

plagiarisation, ?unscientific taxonomy?, ?unscientific practices?,

?unscientific incursions? and ?deliberate acts of intellectual

kleptoparasitism?.





Kaiser et al. seek to break and destroy the rules of Zoological

Nomenclature (Ride et al. 1999)

including the three critical rules of:



1/ Homonymy (Principal 5, Article 52 and elsewhere),



2/ Priority (Principal 3, Article 23 and elsewhere),



3/ Stability (Principal 4, Articles 23, 65 and elsewhere),



as well as the ethics of the Code (Appendix A).





They seek to do this in the first instance by

boycotting established nomenclature and the established rules in a war plan

that must by their own account run for decades (Kaiser et al. 2013, p. 20).





They then seek coin their own names for

hundreds of taxa already properly named by others and attempting to take credit

for the research work of the earlier authors. This will create unprecedented

taxonomic instability and confusion.





Their actions will effectively:





1/ Freeze the progress of herpetological taxonomy

and if copied, perhaps all of zoology;





2/ Put lives at risk;





3/ Increase the likelihood of extinctions of

rarer taxa.





Their alleged loophole in the Zoological Code

which they assert allows them to create hundreds invalid junior synonyms to

usurp the proper names, as quoted by them, does not in fact exist!





This is because Kaiser et al. misquoted the Zoological Rules in their badly written paper.





Furthermore the repeated claim by Kaiser et al. to have the official backing of

the ICZN for their scheme is also shown to be a lie.





Keywords: Hinrich Kaiser; Wulf Schleip;

Wolfgang W?ster; Mark O?Shea; Peter Uetz; Raymond Hoser; Richard Wells; Herpetological Review; Australasian Journal of Herpetology; Australian Biodiversity Record; Journal of Herpetology; peer review; fraud;

ethics; taxonomy; ICZN; rules; nomenclature; homonymy; priority; stability;

synonym; boycott; Leiopython; Laudakia; Adelynkimberlea; Spracklandus.











EXPOSING A FRAUD!





AFRONAJA WALLACH, W?STER AND





BROADLEY 2009, IS A

JUNIOR SYNONYM





OF SPRACKLANDUS HOSER

2009!





ABSTRACT





Documented here is a consistent pattern of lies, dishonesty and

obvious theft of ideas by a group





of so-called herpetologists or reptile scientists, spanning more

than ten years. Wolfgang W?ster,





Donald Broadley, Van Wallach, Wulf Schleip and David John Williams

in particular have engaged





in fraudulent and morally repugnant activity. This includes

against the ICZN?s published protocols.





Between them, they have used the internet, journals they exercise

editorial control over and other





means to deliberately spread lies,

false statements and censor the truth.





On 21 September 2009 (or thereabouts), in an audacious move,

W?ster and two friends (Van





Wallach and Donald Broadley) falsely claimed in an online paper

(Wallach, W?ster and Broadley





2009), that seven earlier (2009) print publications by Raymond

Hoser (this author), were not validly





published under the ICZN rules, known as ?the code?. They

simultaneously attempted to steal





naming rights for the Spitting Cobras (genus Spracklandus Hoser

2009), renaming the genus





Afronaja (as a subgenus) in their own online paper. The lie was

then spread throughout the





internet and elsewhere to destabilize and confuse existing

nomenclature for a wide diversity of





reptiles including rattlesnakes, cobras, pythons, elapids and

skinks. To maintain stability of





nomenclature, this paper needed to be published.





Keywords: Spracklandus, Afronaja, Naja, Cobras,

Hoser, Wallach, W?ster, Broadley, taxonomy,





nomenclature.







Snakebusters? - Australia's best reptiles?



The only hands-on reptiles? shows that lets people hold the animals?.



Reptile parties?, events, courses

Phones: 9812 3322



0412 777 211





> Date: Wed, 15 May 2013 15:04:54 -0700

> From: dyanega at ucr.edu

> To: TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU

> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paper on taxonomic standards in herpetology

>

> On 5/15/13 12:48 PM, JF Mate wrote:

> > "To close this supposed loophole you would have to totally redefine the

> > criteria constituting a published work (ie. Article 8), especially if you

> > would restrict all nomenclatorial acts to peer reviewed journals only."

> >

> > It seems that the issue is limited to section 8.1, as to what constitutes a

> > valid work. Adding additional limitations to the effect of avoiding

> > flagrant conflict of interests (i.e. you can?t own the journal, be the

> > editor and publish in it simultaneously) should be possible without

> > impinging too much on the varied offer of publication outlets that we

> > currently have.

> There are a number of possible solutions; to be taken seriously, each

> has to be evaluated for a number of criteria - (off the top of my head)

> How easy is it to implement? How easy is it to identify infractions? How

> easy would it be to circumnavigate? How objective is it?  How easy would

> it be to apply retroactively? etc.

>

> In this framework, any proposal to define the *kind* of publication

> venue that is or is not Code-compliant is going to fail the test. The

> criterion above is trivial to circumnavigate, as is any proposal to use

> peer-review (witness Calodema). If one wishes to completely exclude all

> variants of self-publishing, the most conventional method one could use

> is to establish a formal "white list" of approved journals, which would

> even EXCLUDE peer-reviewed journals that did not meet some subjective

> level of quality - but, even that approach fails the tests of

> objectivity and implementation.

>

> Myself, I see two primary approaches as having potential, depending on

> how much the community wants to delegate responsibility. We could, in

> the next Code edition, expand and incorporate the "Code of Ethics"

> recommendations presently in the Code, formalizing them as Articles and

> making it explicit that names published in contravention of the Ethical

> rules are subject to suppression. Then, in addition to the present body

> of applications the Commission receives to vote on, we would also be

> voting on whether or not to suppress names for which the arguments are

> convincing that the author(s) acted unethically. This delegates

> responsibility to taxonomists who are motivated to cry foul, and to the

> Commissioners who would then have to evaluate the claims and make a

> ruling. In the present case, Kaiser et al. would be able to submit an

> application to summarily suppress all of Hoser's works, presenting

> relevant evidence, and have the Commission vote on it, citing violation

> of the new "ethics" Articles. The problem is that this potentially drags

> the Commission into matters of taxonomic opinion; the question is

> whether we can phrase the ethical guidelines in such a way that they

> address negative impact on *nomenclature*. While I agree with Neal about

> the effective "separation of powers," I also see that there are places

> where the overlap is enough to justify a change - e.g., if an author

> post-2000 defines a taxon using a type specimen which they never

> personally examined, or diagnoses a taxon as occupying a certain node on

> a cladogram, etc., then things like that *predictably and demonstrably*

> threaten nomenclatural stability, even though not presently in violation

> of the Code. We could potentially make such things violations in the

> next Code, if we take a broader view regarding impacts upon

> nomenclature. One thing Kaiser et al. do make clear is that nomenclature

> is suffering, and continuing to turn a blind eye to it is not ultimately

> doing nomenclature any favors.

>

> The other alternative is to overhaul the present LAN mechanism, so

> individual names or works can be added or subtracted from the Official

> Lists in a timely fashion, rather than requiring the entirety of a

> single taxonomic discipline to be covered in a single massive act that

> takes years to compile, to debate, and then vote on. However, the only

> way this fine level of detail would be practical is if there were an

> online interface which allowed for real-time debate and used verifiable

> IDs to allow for a democratized voting process; a taxonomic social

> medium. That is, the Commission cannot be expected to vote one by one

> for every name or work ever published (which is the ultimate endpoint

> for the Official Lists), but the *community* could, if given the right

> interface. In the present case, Kaiser et al. would submit a proposal

> for a public vote (by registered users) as to whether Hoser's works

> should be suppressed, and the votes would be visible and non-anonymous;

> a minimum number of votes would need to be cast, and a specific

> threshold of a majority would be required. This sort of mechanism would

> potentially dovetail with the ongoing development of ZooBank, which

> already requires unique, non-anonymous registration AND has ethical

> guidelines in place, violation of which can cost users their privileges.

>

> It is my personal opinion (and, admittedly, perhaps ONLY my opinion)

> that if we can democratize the Code without sacrificing the underlying

> principles ("sense and stability") it's a good thing, if for no other

> reason than a more personal level of involvement - on the part of each

> individual taxonomist - will *strengthen* people's desire to understand

> and apply the Code, rather than weakening it. All of the technical

> hurdles that one can think of have long since been passed; I'm not even

> convinced that we need to have a hard-bound edition of the Code ever

> again. As such, I personally favor the latter approach; any time an

> issue arises, air it out in public, and let the taxonomic community make

> the call. The Commission would still guide and advise and clarify, but

> at least certain types of issues would be acted upon in the collective

> environment (and once a name is on a LAN, it is set in stone, so the

> potential cleanup work left would be diminished, ratchet-like, with

> every such addition). If we can have a rational and civil discourse, in

> which the bulk of the taxonomic community takes an active interest, I

> think we can do significantly better than the status quo, for a number

> of issues facing us - beyond just the present topic of taxonomic vandalism.

>

> Sincerely,

>

> --

> Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum

> Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega

> phone: (951) 827-4315 (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

>

>

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>

> Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.



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Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.