[SEEK-Taxon] RE: LinneanCore Group Work

[Nico Franz]

Hi James:

    I have considerable sympathy for your view here but would submit that 
it - just like Rich's - almost wholly misses the point of Berendsohn's and 
the TCS's (by necessity) much broader view of what taxonomic databases need 
to handle.

1. Rich's view is (very roughly) that just the implication of a type 
specimen doesn't qualify a name use as a concept (he wrote: "a 
circumscription of one specimen is so unbelievably useless a concept, that 
it really shouldn't be thought of as a concept at all").

2. You in turn are saying (again roughly) that "at least we must consider 
whether there are hierarchical implications" (does my renaming of atratus 
cascade up to the genus-level?). I wonder whether Rich would agree... and 
further, we both know that the taxonomic literature itself is spotty on 
these issues (consider a checklist with new names but focusing solely on 
the species level). Is it the LC's / TCS's task to somehow sort these 
things out and then shuffle some name uses to one and other uses to another 
database platform?

    The point is: both of you actually place your own preferred measuring 
sticks for achieving what I called goal 2 in my previous e-mail (better 
communication about nature) over goal 1 (managing information in taxonomic 
publications/database in precise and lasting ways). The TCS enjoys no such 
luxuries! Jessie in particular could have come up with her third way of 
deciding when we've crossed the nomenclature/taxonomy line. And in fact she 
did, and then went on to implement the positions of five additional parties 
as well, several of which do in fact only wish to handle "names," except 
their preferred handlings of names actually differ when compared with the 
names that other parties prefer to handle. Are you starting to hear goal 1 
calling louder and louder?

    My point was: my two examples were clearly examples of name uses - 
actually also name use changes - proposed and published in the primary 
taxonomic literature. This is what we are attempting to store; Berendsohn's 
"name sec. reference" annotation applies. In that info-managing sense 
Neoderelomus sec. Hoffmann and Phyllotrox atratus sec. Franz they are both 
concepts. The kinds of uses of nomenclatural acts and taxonomic ideas that 
make up the source information for the TCS are so broad and intertwined 
that we need not look any further.

    In fact, as TDWG participants found out, our real challenge is not how 
to separate nomenclature from taxonomy (we treat both as conceptual 
information and let the actually transported contents [including their 
relationships] speak for themselves), but how to encourage parties to 
identify themselves as strict "identifiers/users" of concepts vs. 
"creators," viz. to come to terms with their speaker roles. Both Hoffmann 
and I are certainly expert speakers in the two previous examples. At least 
I'm struggling to make it through peer review specifically to convey that 
message. Whether we're dealing with synonymies issues, hierarchical 
implications, or types is quite secondary.

    I would propose that the success for the LC/TCS interaction will depend 
much more on an understanding of broadly sustainable and flexible 
information management challenges than on a clean distinction of 
nomenclature and taxonomy. The TCS has already come to understand these 
aspects quite well; that Jessie et al. respect the demands of goal 1 
(information management) more than their own preferences about how to 
achieve goal 2 (see Prometheus) should tell us a lot.

Cheers,

Nico

Nico M. Franz
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
735 State Street, Suite 300
Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Phone: (805) 966-1677; Fax: (805) 892-2510; E-mail: franz at nceas.ucsb.edu
Website: http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~franz/

At 07:45 AM 11/13/2004 +0900, Nozomi Ytow wrote:
>Hi Nico,
>
> > Question 1:
> > would the "Hypoleschus atratus Fall is now a synonym of
> > Phyllotrox atratus (Fall)" statement qualify as a strictly
> > nomenclatural procedure? Please (Rich/Jessie/others)
> > answer yes/no, and/or explain.
>
>It depends on definition of concept (not the defition of
>the concpet of  H. atratus and P. atratus).
>If a concept definition depends on hierarchy, the answer is no,
>because replacement of the concept in a hierarchy changes the
>concept.
>If a concept is defined independently from a hierarchy,
>e.g. defined a circumscription distinguishing the concept
>from any other part of the world, then answer is yes.
>If replacement of H. atratus to Phyllotrox does not affect
>complete circumscription (distinguishing it from not only
>other species in the seme genus but all other part of the
>world), then the replacement does not affect on concept of
>H./P. atratus, and hence change of H. atratus to P. atratus
>is nomenclatural.  Does the replacement affect on complete
>circumscription on Phyllotrox, e.g. removal of a character
>state distinguishg Phyllotrox from Hypoleschus?  If yes,
>the procedure affects on concept of Phyllotrox, but not
>on H./P. atratus.  Therefore, it is strictly nomenclatural
>for H./P. atratus but unnecessary for Phyllotrox.  One action
>has two facets, one nomenclatural and another conceptual.
>It is inevitalbe because a name is inferface between intent and
>extent of a concept.  It is another reason why I proposed yet another
>TCS at TDWG 2004.
>Note: difference between LC and TCS is name-string or name
>(relationship between name-string and named-object), rather
>than nomenclatural or conceptural in my understanding.
>It is technical one, not philosophical.
>
> > Question 2:
>It is nomenclatural... isn't it?

;-)

> > So far as I can see, I agree with Jessie's
> > view that there should be no instances of names used in taxonomic
> > publications without a "sec."
>
>Name-string, which is not a name anymore, however, can be shared
>by these names with sec.

NF: This is true I think, and if implemented is a concession to the idea 
that some name uses are so rootless, loose and variable that even the TCS 
can't make them more uniquely idetifiable and manageable in the long term.

>JMS
>--
>Dr. Nozomi "James" Ytow
>Institute of Biological Sciences / Gene research center
>University of Tsukuba
>Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572
>Japan
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