Taxonomy, the fading field 2 Jun 2009 A very nice piece in The Scientist (free registration) points out how traditional taxonomy is being replaced by the sexier molecular techniques (no mention of barcoding), and how this means that important connections between species are being missed, as they rapidly disappear. Species and systematics Systematics
Evolution Sudden impact: Darwin on cognition and a leap of faith 19 May 2008 If scientists working in biology or a related field like psychology want to get attention, they will say something like this: Darwin was wrong, or made a mistake, or is insufficient to explain X, where X is whatever they are researching. It makes them seem to be proposing something important,… Read More
Creationism and Intelligent Design On the lateral transfer post 2 Apr 2009 Well yes it was a joke. But it was based on the inappropriate manner in which the well-known work on lateral transfer was reported by New Scientist as showing that Darwin was wrong. That genes occasionally cross over taxonomic borders among single celled organisms by transduction (viral exchange), conjugation (sharing… Read More
Administrative A paperback of Species: A History 12 Jan 2011 My not-inconsiderable ego has expanded several sizes upon the news from University of California Press that my book Species: A History of the Idea (see at right or on the My Books page) is to become a paperback. I hope to make a couple of corrections, and maybe add a… Read More
But – is taxonomy being split into multiple subfields, or lumped in with other disciplines to become a superfield?
What seems to be happening is that taxonomy is dying as it is being overrun by one aspect of taxonomy, the molecular, to the detriment of field and museum taxonomy, for which there is no funding nor appreciable credit given. But without those aspects of taxonomic description and investigation, ecology, evolution and various other aspects that are fundamental to biology itself are incomprehensible. So we are seeing a major problem in the way biological research is being funded. One point that I find most intriguing here is that old-school taxonomy is alive and well in India, South and Latin America, and to a lesser extent in the Russian Federation. However, these tend to be local projects, so while the work done is of a good quality, it means large parts of the earth are presently not being well studied.