Taxacom: A compromise solution (was Re: Single official lists of taxa (sensu Doug Yanega many proposals to this list))

Thu Jul 6 06:29:29 CDT 2023

The most recently published one!

George
****************************************************************************
*Dr George Beccaloni FLS*
*Director, Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project*

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On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 12:28, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
wrote:

> 'surely one name needs to be regarded as the current valid name'
>
> Why? If there are two active taxonomists in the world on a group, say, and
> one of them is a generic lumper and the other a generic splitter, then they
> will place a species into different genera and it will have two names.
> Which is correct?
>
> Stephen
> On Thursday, 6 July 2023 at 10:59:04 pm NZST, George Beccaloni <
> g.beccaloni at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Sort of. Yes, you would need databases giving all the synonyms etc, but
> surely one name needs to be regarded as the current valid name. It would be
> a retrograde step to suggest otherwise. And getting rid of gender agreement
> would mean that no additional spellings of the species-group name would
> have to be added to the list.
>
> George
>
> ****************************************************************************
> *Dr George Beccaloni FLS*
> *Director, Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project*
>
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>
> ****************************************************************************
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 11:44, Stephen Thorpe via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>  I will again suggest that what is needed is a move away from the idea of
> a single correct name for a taxon. Bombus ruderatus is the same name (from
> the point of view of homonymy) but just a different spelling from B.
> ruderatum and B. ruderata. If we are to track information on the species,
> we need to search for all three spelling variants, in case someone has used
> them. In the same way, we need to search for all synonyms and alternative
> combinations for the same species. You can call one of the gender variants
> the "correct" one, but what does that actually achieve? People will still
> use the other variants, as lepidopterists have been doing all along,
> without problems. The easiest solution is just to consider all gender
> variants to be synonyms and you track a taxon by the set of all its
> synonyms.
> Stephen
>     On Thursday, 6 July 2023 at 10:13:02 pm NZST, David Redei via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>  No, sorry, I absolutely do not like Adam's suggestion. Then genera will
> contain some names with masculine, some with feminine, and some with neuter
> ending, and sorry, I do not want to remember that "OK, Bombus lapidarius,
> Bombus ruderatus, Bombus alpinus, Bombus confusus, Bombus auricomus and
> Bombus balteatus are all masculine, but Bombus germanica and Bombus pulchra
> are feminine and Bombus nigrum is neuter, because they were recently
> transferred from other genera and they kept their former ending. (Imaginary
> names.) Throwing away rules and making people remember each and every name
> one by one is considerably more difficult than following rules. People can
> cite examples of problematic adjectives, but the fact is that the
> overwhelming majority of the adjectives are easy to handle.
>
> In my opinion, "prevailing usage" is the most swampy and controversial term
> in the current Code. Glossary defines it as "*that usage of the name which
> is adopted by at least a substantial majority of the most recent authors
> concerned with the relevant taxon, irrespective of how long ago their work
> was published.*" What is "substantial majority"? If there are 100 authors,
> 51 of them uses one usage, 49 the other, it is definitely not a
> "substantial majority". How about 55 : 45? 60 : 40? 70 : 30? Where is the
> limit? What if there are only 10 people using the name, and the ratio is 9
> : 1, is it a substantial majority? Can we call 9 people a "majority"? How
> about a scenario when only 6 people used the name in the past 100 years and
> their ratio is 4 : 2, is it substantial majority?  What if the ratio is
> 30:70, but most of the 70 authors publish in exotic journals in exotic
> languages therefore most of the scientific committee do not read them,
> while the 30 authors publish in easily available periodicals in universally
> understood languages therefore all members of the scientific community read
> them, would we call the 70 as "prevailing usage" in this case?
>
> This term is a nightmare, lacking any clear definition, you need to rely on
> your subjective feelings. Moreover, using the "prevailing usage" is highly
> difficult in practice, since you need to make a major literature search to
> establish the prevailing usage.
>
> In my opinion, gender agreement might be surely a trouble for some people
> who do not want to waste time for learning something supposedly "useless"
> (?), but abandoning it would be a very significant step backwards, highly
> destabilizing nomenclature. Please note that *the "prevailing usage" is
> precisely the gender agreement itself: changing the ending of the specific
> epithets is a practice that has been in prevailing usage in the past 250
> years*.* Our currently existing "prevailing usage" of names is based on
> gender agreement*, which was overwhelmingly correctly (and yes, sometimes
> incorrectly) applied in all names (minus Lepidoptera).  If you really seek
> stability, you cannot abandon it.
>
> David Redei
>
>
>
> On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 13:36, George Beccaloni via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi Adam,
> >
> > I think your compromise solution is a really excellent suggestion - one
> > which should satisfy users of scientific names, promote stability and
> make
> > names 'true' unique identifiers - so important in this IT age. One
> > suggestion though: rather than relying on 'prevailing usage' to 'fix' the
> > name, the new Code could set a date, and state that the name to be used
> > after that date is the one used in the last valid nomenclatural act
> > published before that date. That would be unambiguous.
> >
> > I think much of the discussion on the issue of gender agreement misses
> what
> > I regard to be the main point: that in the modern age it is highly
> > desirable to have unique identifiers for species. Allowing the names to
> > change spelling because of gender agreement may have been fine in the
> > pre-computer era, but is of detriment now. How can anyone say a species
> > name is a unique identifier when the spelling of the species-group name
> can
> > change if it moves to another genus? This is madness, but is perhaps an
> > issue more keenly felt by those of us who deal with huge catalogues of
> > names, rather than those who do not.
> >
> > George
> >
> >
> ****************************************************************************
> > *Dr George Beccaloni FLS*
> > *Director, Alfred Russel Wallace Correspondence Project*
> >
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> >
> >
> ****************************************************************************
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 02:41, Adam Cotton via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > There is a relatively simple solution to the gender agreement issue
> that
> > > I would like to propose.
> > >
> > > I do not think that lepidopterists really want to impose original
> > > spellings for all zoological names in other taxa. We have already been
> > > using original spellings for most species names for a long time with
> > > exceptions for incorrect subsequent spellings that are in prevailing
> > > usage (e.g. Papilio pitmanii -the original spelling - was changed to
> > > pitmani over 100 years ago, and that spelling is in prevailing usage so
> > > is regarded as the 'correct' spelling under article 33.3.1).
> > >
> > > I propose that when a species is transferred to another genus gender
> > > agreement should no longer be applied, and instead use the current
> > > spelling of the species name regardless of the gender of the new genus.
> > > That way species names would be fixed permanently, so that e.g. the
> > > species known as Bombus lapidarius, Camponotus herculeanus, and
> Polistes
> > > gallicus would continue to be called lapidarius, herculeanus, and
> > > gallicus even if they were moved to different genera.
> > >
> > > This suggested 'compromise' could easily be incorporated in the 5th
> > > edition of the Code by applying the prevailing usage concept, which is
> > > already widely used in the current Code, with relevant new articles to
> > > govern these changes. This would actually simplify the Code a lot, as
> > > many more articles pertaining to gender agreement would be removed than
> > > the new ones added to implement the system.
> > >
> > > Previously described species names would continue to use the spelling
> in
> > > current prevailing use, even if it is not the spelling in the original
> > > description, and newly described species group names would never
> > > subsequently change their spellings.
> > >
> > > There will be some cases where more than one spelling is currently used
> > > in the literature, in which case priority could be given to the
> original
> > > spelling if prevailing usage is unclear.
> > >
> > > Some taxonomists will not like my suggested solution, but it would
> solve
> > > the whole problem without names having to change from their current
> > > spellings. I vote for the principle of nomenclatural stability which
> the
> > > current Code aspires to. There is nothing more stable than species
> names
> > > which never change when they are moved to a different genus. I suspect
> > > that implementing this suggestion would also make life a lot easier for
> > > the database people too.
> > >
> > > Adam.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 06/07/2023 05:17, Douglas Yanega via Taxacom wrote:
> > > > On 7/5/23 1:54 PM, John Noyes wrote:
> > > >> Hi Doug,
> > > >>
> > > >> Fair enough, but you cannot get away from the argument that gender
> > > >> agreement is just simply 100% unnecessary. Forget about it being a
> > > >> waste of time. If we all worked on the premise that all genera have
> > > >> no gender then it would make life a whole lot easier. Like many
> > > >> people I definitely prefer the original spelling.
> > > >
> > > > And you work, by and large, with species names that rarely enter the
> > > > non-taxonomic literature. In contrast, using a few other hymenopteran
> > > > genera as examples, consider that many of the most common bumblebee
> > > > species in the world, and many of the most common ants, and many of
> > > > the most common paper wasps, would all suddenly have to change
> > > > spellings because they have been in masculine genera for over 100
> > > > years, but their original Linnaean or Fabrician genera were feminine
> > > > (e.g., Apis, Formica, and Vespa). The many people - including
> > > > laypeople - who are familiar with common European species like Bombus
> > > > lapidarius, Camponotus herculeanus, and Polistes gallicus wouldn't be
> > > > happy *at all*.
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> > >
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> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> > about 36 years, 1987-2023.
> >
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> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
> about 36 years, 1987-2023.
>
>