[Taxacom] Fw:Re: Sale: immortal names

Tue Jul 7 06:36:48 CDT 2015

Folks,

           And don't forget one more possible consequence here -- undue splitting and naming of taxa simply because you have made financial deal with someone to sell a name that nets you a significant amount of money.  It couldn't happen a lot, assuming you have *appropriate* peer review in place, but I am betting you that it would (will?) happen to some extent if this were to become common practice.

James

James K. Adams
Professor of Biology, Dalton State College
706-272-4427; 678-767-5938
visit the Georgia Lepidoptera website at
       http://www.daltonstate.edu/galeps
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From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Erdei Boglárka <berdei at citromail.hu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 3:51 AM
To: Erdei Boglárka
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Fw:Re:  Sale: immortal names

-- Eredeti üzenet --
Feladó: Doug Yanega  <dyanega at ucr .edu>Címzett:  <>,  <>,  <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>Elküldve: 2015. július 6. 23:31Tárgy : Re: [Taxacom] Sale: immortal names

On 7/6/15 11:48 AM, Daniel Janzen wrote:

> "One of the oldest of all scientific traditions is the free international exchange of specimens…"

>

> One of the oldest of all scientific traditions is the financiing of collecting expeditions by wealthy patrons - whether their payback was market value in home currency or home prestige value in social credits.

>

> "…..anything that might infringe on this will turn into a "slippery slope" scenario".

>

> And just how much of the taxasphere wishes to continue to be treated and viewed as the penniless artist selling art on the street corner for impulse purchase by one in ten thousand passersby?  We have all been way along on the slippery slope since the Pleistocene and before.

>

> Just how long would university campuses continue to exist without the financial support of philanthropic (?) individuals, philanthropic (?) companies, and philanthropic (?) government subsidies? - and the financing from parents who want their fledgings to have a safe and interesting platform from which to fledge into the grinding maw of society?

I am not disputing that there is a long history of philanthropy and

patronage in science as a whole, including taxonomy. The question raised

was whether that patronage or philanthropy is potentially being usurped

if the owner(s) of specimens are not sharing in the largesse they are

being used to generate. There are four easily-recognized categories of

interested parties when a new taxon is named: the collector(s), the

repository(s), the identifier(s), and the describer(s). All four involve

an expenditure of time and effort, at the very least, thereby

representing some measure of monetary investment. Do they all have a

right to share in revenue-generating patronage? (e.g., does the person

who collected a specimen have any rights once they have deposited it

somewhere, if there is no signed transfer of ownership?)

> Barter in all currencies is the essence of human societies, and there are thousands of ways to distribute that currency in return for this or that product.  A conspicuous auction is only one of thousands in use all day every day.

>

Barter assumes that you are the owner of the property in question, and

it is yours to give. Do you own the property rights to specimens that

you have borrowed from someone else?

Look at Eric Metzler's situation: if he goes out at his own expense,

collects specimens, decides that they are new taxa, and then describes

them, auctions the names, and keeps the proceeds, no one (I presume) is

going to think ill of him for doing it - he is the collector, the

repository, the identifier, and the describer. Now, consider two

alternatives on this - (1) he goes out at his own expense, collects

specimens, and then deposits them in a collection. Then someone else

borrows those specimens, decides that they are new taxa, and then

describes them, auctions the names, and keeps the proceeds. Is that fair

to Eric? Is that fair to the collection the specimens were borrowed

from? (2) suppose Eric never went out, never collected any specimens,

but instead borrowed everything from a series of different collections,

including material already IDed as "n. sp.", and auctioned their names

to support his research. Is that fair to the collections the specimens

were borrowed from, the collector(s), or the people who IDed them as new

species? All sorts of permutations are possible, but is the answer

always the same, that only the describer is entitled to make any profit??

I'm not suggesting that there are right or wrong answers to these

questions. I'm suggesting that we need to ASK these questions, and we

should not be surprised if there is no consensus on the answers people

give, or pretend that context does not matter. This is likely to be

contentious, and we need to be prepared to contend with it . Just HOW

contentious it will be is certainly going to depend on how much money is

involved; for a small struggling collection, or someone like Eric,

something like $5-10K would be very significant, and therefore a very

serious issue for them. For others, this amount might not merit any

concern. But when the amount involved is something like the $650K paid

for the infamous "Golden Palace Monkey" name auction, is there ANY

museum in the world that would say that they don't care?

Suppose, purely hypothetically, that you were a collection manager who

had just found a new species (and announced it in a press release), sent

it off to experts to be described, and then got a private communication

from someone offering to make a substantial donation to your collection

(say, twice your normal annual budget) if you have it named after his

company? How should you respond? Do you ask to have the specimens

returned so you can describe the species yourself and keep all the

money? Do you tell the experts and arrange to give them a small donation

after your donation has been negotiated? Do you tell the would-be patron

that you don't approve of such crass commercialism, and tell him to keep

his money? More to the point, wouldn't something like this alter how you

deal with this or future species discoveries from your collection? How

could it NOT?

> Lets all relax and get on with doing serious taxonomy and all the really good things, patronyms included, that can be done with it.  If we don't, or can't, all this thought and energy and noise is just a whisper over the grave of the world's wild biodiversity, what there is left of it.

>

On this, we are in full agreement. If you've followed my comments on

this topic over the years, you know that I would like to see us do

everything we can to promote taxonomy and the protection of

biodiversity, and it would be wonderful if we could figure out a way to

include this form of patronage - but we need to do so WITHOUT it

creating rifts in the community in the process. Call me cynical, but I

do see a real potential for damage - damage to our ability to cooperate,

and even damage to our credibility as scientists. I believe we need to

properly anticipate such consequences before we can decide how best to

proceed . Also, despite what some might think, I would NOT enjoy being

here 20 years from now telling people "I told you so", because this is

also MY livelihood, and my passion, that is potentially at stake. I want

to see taxonomy, taxonomists, and collections *thrive*, especially

because we ARE advocates for biodiversity. People can't learn to love

nature if they know nothing about it, and taxonomists can tell them, and

our collections can show them.

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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