[Taxacom] [iczn-list] provisions to the Code

[Stephen Thorpe]

This is all "bluster" Doug!
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Art. 73.1 has no relevance to the present case. Quoting, as you have done, an article with 5 subarticles, and without further explanation, is not really helpful!
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You are fixed on the idea that the database isn't published, but this is not relevant either! Firstly, it is published, just not published according to the Code. Secondly, it doesn't matter, because it is not being used in a way that the Code requires publication (in the sense of the Code). When a typical taxonomist designates a holotype, they don't do so in relation to any published information either, they just say that the holotype has been deposited wherever (and?this doesn't actually have to be true!)
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>"That fly I saw on the table in my neighbor's yard at 0930, June 11, 2010" might also point to a unique specimen, but it cannot be used as a holotype designation, either - unless you also happened to supply a photograph<
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Really, where does it say anything like that in the Code??? What if I just say that the holotype is the specimen I deposited wherever, with no photograph. That is what usually happens.
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I guess you are alluding to: 
?73.1.2. If the nominal species-group taxon is based on a single specimen, either so stated or implied in the original publication, that specimen is the holotype fixed by monotypy (see Recommendation 73F). If the taxon was established before 2000 evidence derived from outside the work itself may be taken into account [Art. 72.4.1.1] to help identify the specimen.
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But how do we "identify the specimen" of any holotype published after 1999, using only evidence in the work itself?? How does that work? Taken literally, 72.1.2 just implies that we can't identify the specimen Hoser designated as holotype, but we know that! It doesn't say that we have to be able to identify it!
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What about: 
Recommendation 73A. Designation of holotype. An author who establishes a new nominal species-group taxon should designate its holotype in a way that will facilitate its subsequent recognition.
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In summary, the Code is far too vague to draw any objective conclusions in this case, and many other nonstandard cases..
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Stephen


________________________________
From: Doug Yanega <dyanega at ucr.edu>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>; "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Wednesday, 16 April 2014 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] [iczn-list] provisions to the Code



On 4/15/14 2:06 PM, Stephen Thorpe wrote:

But there is no definition in the Code to specify or constrain how exactly a holotype may be designated. Actually, there is. It's called Article 73.1.

At a minimum, a unique specimen must be somehow specified (pointed to). Stating something equivalent to "the specimen observed in the wild on DATE and TIME by OBSERVER and recorded in DATABASE" therefore may specify a unique specimen. It can't specify anything if DATABASE is not published. Even indications only worked when there was a published reference being pointed to.

Doug is perhaps confusing this with indication, as defined by the Code. And designating types via indication effectively ended with the publication of the 4th Edition of the Code. Since 2000, it now requires explicit fixation, under Art. 16.4, which was ADDED to the Code in the 4th Edition. That means that the information required to recognize the holotype now must be self-contained, rather than attributable to some third party. Note that 73.1.2 indicates that after 2000, you cannot use evidence from "outside the work itself" to identify which specimen is the holotype, and in this case it is impossible to identify which specimen is the holotype using only the information Hoser presents - since there is, and never was, any such physical specimen in the Florida Museum of Natural History, and Hoser did not include any photographs. 
But Hoser is not using the database record to indicate diagnostic characters, he is simply usintg it to point to a unique specimen to act as a holotype.Which it cannot, since there is no specimen, unlike referring to a specimen number attached to an actual specimen. "That fly I saw on the table in my neighbor's yard at 0930, June 11, 2010" might also point to a unique specimen, but it cannot be used as a holotype designation, either - unless you also happened to supply a photograph.

At any rate, whatever the opinion of individual commissioners is on this case is irrelevant, as only an officially *published* Opinion by the ICZN can overturn the prima facie availability of Hoser's names in this case.
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>Not really. Any taxonomist who wants to treat Hoser's names as unavailable can do so. That doesn't mean they are correct in doing so, but as I pointed out earlier, the literature is full of names, and decisions regarding names, that are not Code-compliant. The name "Darwinius mesillae" was not available when it was first made public, but the community treated it as if it was.That case demonstrated that the community's opinion was what really mattered, and the same is true here - there is no default presumption that a name is available until proven otherwise, unlike a court of Law and the presumption of innocence. Hoser considers his names available, and other taxonomists do not, and both sides claim that their stance is prima facie, so we have a controversy. The Commission can offer guidance in cases where there is a controversy, and that's one of our primary functions, but even then, we cannot force people to recognize our opinions. I am offering mine,
 adding that other Commissioners are in agreement that Hoser's type designations in this case are not Code-compliant, and - at least thus far - none in dissent, though the internal debate has just begun. It may not be "Official", but there's two things you need to realize about that: (1) even "Official" statements from the Commission are ignored by some taxonomists, so a formal case and vote does not guarantee any actual resolution (it just closes the case as far as the Commission is concerned), especially since I assume that even if the Commission were to rule against him in a formal case, that Hoser would continue to treat his names as available, and (2) it is truly ironic that you are insisting that the Commission MUST publish an opinion to declare that an unpublished observational record does not count as a Code-compliant holotype. 


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