That’s exactly what you should do. A huge number of taxonomic groups still need a huge amount of research to sort out that messiness.
2 Likes
When the differences don’t affect the meaning of the name (e.g., it’s clear that you’re talking about the same species whether you call it Bahia absinthifolia or Picradeniopsis absinthifolia) I’m often fine with just going with whatever’s on iNaturalist. In other cases, though, bad taxonomy can be actively misleading. For instance, I’m not going to identify anything as Mertensia lanceolata.
2 Likes
iNat can use atlases to minimize the numbers of identifications that get bumped up to a higher level in the event of a taxon split. For example, when I split off Dipterostemon capitatus (previously Dichelostemma capitatum) from the genus Dichelostemma last year, I had good advice from curators to ensure there were accurate atlases in place for all the target taxa in advance.
That way, a lot fewer Dichelostemma IDs has to get bumped up to the Brodiaeoideae subfamily. The split process was able to determine that a Dichelostemma ID in Mexico, Arizona, or Los Angeles, CA should be mapped to Dipterostemon (because none of the remaining species are present in those places). Similarly, a Dichelostemma ID in Salem, OR could stay unmodified, because that’s beyond the range of Dipterostemon capitatus. If both of the target genera were present in the county, then those genus-level IDs had to be bumped up to subfamily.
The process is described (along with a lot of other info on taxon changes) in this blog post: https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/40417-using-a-taxon-split-input-as-an-output
1 Like
I think there very much is an agreed point of view for most taxa, it is mostly an illusion that there is disagreement as online all previous opinions are available and books are out of date as soon as they are published so there are seemingly infinite opinions, however they are historic and far removed from the current consensus. You can find online scientific publications that the earth is flat and that is ellipsoid, that does not mean there is today scientific disagreement about this.
One problem is that the “agreed view” is often hidden deeply in the scientific literature and botanists are not very good at marketing their findings. Botanists don’t collaborate in synthesizing those new findings themselves as that is not important for their careers.
This is one of the worst things about botanists, many are only interested in knowing the right answers themselves and actively avoid sharing their knowledge. I have seen many extremely knowledgeable botanists die before they put their knowledge in writing, then what is the point of that? If you study the literature, the types and plants in the field, share your findings, let the aggregators know so others don’t have to check that again and again. It is plain selfish that you know the right answer but don’t share it and watch everyone else use the wrong name, while criticizing how bad the aggregators and checklists are!
If you’re hoping that insulting people will make them more likely to accommodate your demands on their time, you should probably reconsider.
2 Likes
Do you really think that, in this case, bringing up flatearthers can be of some help to develop the discussion?
Anyway, I meant that disagreement in science is one of its strongest points. Those who want to provide a representetion of science as a monolith with just one point of view (and all those with different points of view are antiscientific), either do not know what science is or are in bad faith.
Ok, this can be true in some cases but it is not unlykely that in other cases there would be even too much agreement just for career purposes.
1 Like
So, I have encountered the behavior, not just among Botanists but among academics in general, that people focus more on discovering the “right answers” and sometimes publishing them only in very limited circles, and do not place much or any energy into sharing their knowledge with a broader audience.
But I don’t think the way you worded this is fully truthful, and I see why @aspidoscelis perceived your comment as insulting. I also would perceive a comment like this an insulting if it were directed at me.
The reason is that you’re claiming to know what is motivating them, i.e. you’re saying “They are only interested in…” and then describing a motivation that is unflattering. Whether or not this is true, you’re not in their head so you don’t really know. And even if it was true, I don’t think it’s particularly respectful or useful to draw attention to a “bad” (i.e. selfish) motivator in another person’s actions.
I also have had experiences in academia that have led me to believe that there may be something else going on here, which is that, in many circles, including most research universities, there is a strong and often somewhat rigid culture of what is considered “real scholarship”, and people face negative career consequences for choosing to focus on something that the establishment in their department or broader field doesn’t consider “real scholarship”.
Like one classic example is that professors will always tell you that you don’t get tenure by writing textbooks, no matter how good the textbooks are. Similarly, you can struggle to get tenure and/or advance in your career, if you publish in areas that are considered “too tangential” to the field you were hired in. And in general, work that is more accessible is rarely considered “real scholarship”.
This discourages both cross-disciplinary research and more accessible research.
So like, while there is a serious problem that you describe, that a lot of people die without really conveying thier knowledge to others, I don’t necessarily think it always (or even frequently) has selfish motivations like your comment seems to imply. I.e. it’s not that people don’t want to share, it’s that, effectively they can’t.
Like to be blunt, look at the work I’m doing with bplant.org. There’s no way I would ever be given any recognition whatsoever for that work, in the context of being a professor at a research university. Yeah, I’d be free to run it as a side project, but it wouldn’t count for anything for me getting tenure. It wouldn’t lessen my workload for teaching, other research, or administrative work. I know because I’ve seen so many professors who start all sorts of fascinating things. Like I know a professor who got tenure and then started focusing on maintaining this massive tome of knowledge that I have seen on so many people’s bookshelves, heavily used to the point it’s falling apart, and his career stagnated as an associate professor, he stayed in his post nearly 30 years without getting promoted to full professor because the other people in his department didn’t value his work. I know numerous professors who did textbooks and got very little recognition for it. My mom was a professor and helped co-found a new center for international students. I know a professor who would publish regularly in teaching journals, and who developed novel, clearer and more concise way of teaching some of the elementary laws in introductory physics courses.
What do all of these people have in common? It didn’t advance their careers at all. These people used their “success” in achieving tenure, to free them up to pursue things they wanted, for which they were often not formally recognized much at all within their departments.
The problem here is not individual people wanting to be selfish. The problem is a culture and set of norms in academia that is enforced through the system of giving or withholding tenure, and promoting and/or withholding promotions, and the accompanying salary and prestige that that brings, which is used to heavily coerce people in the direction of specialized work. I am not sure if people outside academia can realize just how coercive this culture can be. I had one professor tell me that “Pursuing a Ph.D. is about narrowing down your field of interests to where it is so small that you can be one of a group of 4-6 experts in the world, on your field, and then you can share information on that field that only that group can understand.” and I’m like, wowowow you finally articulated how incredibly small-minded your ambitions are. That’s fine for you but please don’t try to bully me into the same box. And it’s not just that guy, I had another guy tell me that my broad interests “are inappropriate for a graduate student.” because I need to specialize more.
They practically beat it into you. I can’t even count the number of borderline abusive statements professors have made when I try to talk about my desire for acessible work, broad work, and cross-disciplinary work. Sometimes they turn it into an insult on my intelligence, saying things like: “Well some people can’t cut it in a Ph.D. program.” (i.e. implying that if I don’t want to hyper-specialize, that I am somehow less intelligent or capable. If that were true then why did professors beg me to stay in the program when I left, telling me I was one of the strongest students they had had, blah blah blah? It’s sickening.)
So yeah, please do not attribute this behavior to people’s innate motivation or desire. It is conditioned into them, often highly coercively.
And it’s also a function of academic programs selecting for and filtering out the people who are committed to accessible work.
They definitely filtered me out. I hated the Ph.D. programs I was in. I felt unwelcome, unvalued, like people hated what I loved and hated who I was. Who wants to work in that kind of environment?
7 Likes
@Davidia is also assuming that taxonomic aggregators like POWO, ITIS, and USDA PLANTS are seeking input from botanists and the limiting factor is botanists refusing to provide it. My experience is the opposite.
2 Likes
I’m sort of scratching my head at the idea that there is at present an agreed point of view for most taxa. Oaks, hickories, ashes, hawthorns, serviceberries… so many large, widespread and common woody plants subject to so much dispute in the present (though it’s been nice to see some real progress in some of these in the last decade). Or look at the taxonomic revision wars in Spiranthes within the last few years. I’ve got Eleocharis I can’t fit into a clean species concept in 2022 in heavily populated and supposedly well-studied regions. Browse through the Flora of North America and note how many taxa are remarked as “in need of further revision.”
None of the above have anything to do with mistaking old viewpoints as current, cryptic publications, or botanists hoarding their findings.
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.