[Taxacom] Taxonomy in Europe in the 21st century

[Bob Mesibov]

Hi, Torbjorn.

You seem to be missing my main point. What disturbs me is not that
taxonomists are doing barcoding, which undoubtedly has its uses. It's
that they are trying to *sell* taxonomy with barcoding. *I* am not the
person saying that taxonomy is all about providing an identification
and data retrieval service. If you say you want money for training
people and setting up the infrastructure to provide that service, you
may well get money - for just that purpose, and no other.

"And if DNA barcoding is only able to identify the 90-95% most common
species, that's just fine with me: we can concentrate our efforts on
the much more scientifically interesting 5-10%. Wouldn't that be nice?"

It would be even nicer if I, as a taxonomist, were lucky enough to live
in a place where 90-95% of the biota was known, and I could busy myself
with the other 5-10%. Unfortunately, I live in a place where the
reverse proportion applies. It's called Earth.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
and School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html
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