TalkScience Event on 17th March
Sarah Kemmitt
Wednesday, 18 March 2009 13:17 UTC
Many thanks to Rod for his great introduction to the myriad contemporary issues in taxonomy at the British Library TalkScience event last night. And many thanks to all of you who attended and contributed to the discussion – it was fantastic to hear the opinions of such a well informed audience.
I said I’d post a link to the paper I mentioned in the introduction – thanks to my colleague Richard Wakeford who drew it to my attention. Valdecasas, A. G. 2008. Zootaxa 1820: 41–48. The author named a species of water mite in such a way as to highlight his frustrations about how taxonomists are evaluated.
It was refreshing that the event closed on a somewhat positive note about the role of taxonomy in the 21st Century – there is a lot of upheaval going on, but there were signs of positive outcomes. I’m sure there were many points that went unsaid, so here’s a further opportunity to voice them.
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Brilliant! In case others don’t want to download and scan for the relevant excerpt, here it is:
“Etymology. Vagabundia comes from the Spanish word ‘vagabundo’ that means ‘wanderer’. It is a feminine substantive; sci refers to Science Citation Index. We pointed out some time ago (Valdecasas et al. 2000) that the popularity of the Science Citation Index (SCI) as a measure of ‘good’ science has been damaging to basic taxonomic work. Despite statements to the contrary that SCI is not adequate to evaluate taxonomic production (Krell 2000), it is used routinely to evaluate taxonomists and prioritize research grant proposals. As with everything in life, SCI had a beginning and will have an end. Before it becomes history, I dedicate this species to this sociological tool that has done more harm than good to taxonomic work and the basic study of biodiversity. Young biologists avoid the ‘taxonomic trap’ or becoming taxonomic specialists (Agnarsson & Kuntner 2007) due to the low citation rate of strictly discovery-oriented and interpretative taxonomic publications. Lack of recognition of the value of these publications, makes it difficult for authors to obtain grants or stable professional positions.”
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Interesting evening at the British library last week.
For those who were not involved with the House of Lords 2nd review of Systematics & Taxonomy you may not be aware that the government are giving their response to the report in a debate open to the public on Wednesday 25th March. Its in the Moses Room in the Palace of Westminster.Coming from an ecological background rather than being an alpha taxonomist (great term!)my concerns are related to the fact that Universities are turning out new graduates with few, if any, taxonomic skills. This is partly because there has been a dumbing down of science in the national curriculum. I know some will argue with this – but many of my collegues have noted that new undergraduates do not have the same knowledge base they had a decade or two ago (not necessarily worse, but different). From my experience few level 1 undergraduates can accurately name the parts of an insect or plant. An example: 10 years ago the interview process for new Environment Agency biology/ecology staff would include identification to species level of macroinvertebrate samples. For the last few years this is not even attempted – they no longer expect new recruits to have these skills & know they will have to train them up in-house.
There is much talk of projects such as OPAL & other teaching & development programmes where young people are exposed to the natural world & hopfully switched on by it. The governments response to the House of Lords report is full of this. However, government (& other bodies) seem unable to distinguish between ‘recognition’ skills (which these projects promote) and the ability to correctly identify organisms to species level. This is what we are lacking and its at this user end of the scale that we are experiencing problems. To discuss ‘Biodiversity’ you need to know what species you actually have – as with all inventories. No wonder we have terms such ‘ecosystem services’ appearing in the science vocabulary. Its another example of looking at things at a gross level- rather than the required fine detail. We cant get the fine detail (e.g. reliable species level data) so go for something easier to calibrate but less reliable.
What we are lacking is a national skills base – people who can accurately identify to species level – for all groups of organisms. Perhaps this is one of the areas that government & the general public (who do doubt view taxonomy as being rather esoteric) would recognise as a useful role for taxonomists?
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