P. joanae, Name Committees misconceptions

John Shuey jshuey at tnc.org
Fri Feb 2 10:41:19 EST 2001


Speaking of reading abilities - I'll respond to the following:

Felix.Sperling at ualberta.ca wrote:

So what did this dread committee actually do? Is there any indication

> that John Shuey took a few minutes to examine the report of the
> committee, as published in News of the Lepidopterists' Society 42(1)
> page 9 and 13? [the spring 2000 issue]. In the first column of page
> 9, it says that:
>
> "3. Felix Sperling explained the evidence for including Papilio joane
> on the list of North American butterflies. The evidence is that it is
> more allied to the machaon complex than to Papilio polyxenes, but is
> sufficiently distinct to merit species-level treatment. For Papilio
> joanae, the key point was not that it was "sufficiently distinct to
> merit species-level treatment", but rather that we should err on the
> side of taxonomic stability by continuing with the most common
> treatment. New evidence, although indicating that mtDNA shares close
> ancestry with Papilio machaon, is insufficient by itself to justify
> synonymy. The committee agreed unanimously."
>

Now contrast this to what I said:

   "Look at what might have (and in fact briefly did) happen with Papilio
joanae.
   Despite the fact that Hietzman actually presented a very convincing
case
   supporting a biological species concept in the original description,
"better
   scientific minds" knew better, and immediately sunk it.  If it weren't
such a
   distinctive species (it really isn't that similar looking to P
polyxenes if you
   have a feel for machaon phenotypes) it may still be lost today.  But
despite the
   proclamations of "better minds" they simply could not make this
inconvenient
   butterfly go away."

Now, Hietzman described this species in 1973 - and the Committee was
formed four years ago - even I would have a hard time attributing such a
conspiracy to The Committee (and in fact - in no way did I attribute this
to the Committee).  My point was and still is that "better minds"
effectively buried this taxon for the better part of a decade - with a
net negative result toward the understanding of it's status and ecology.
It disappeared from the general and technical literature for most of a
decade. What effect has this had?  How can  anyone say for sure?  I did a
quick on-line search of Biosis (1990-2000) and the Zoological record
(1985-2000) and here is what I got:

Papilio glaucus - 162 papers came up
Papilio machaon - 300+ papers came up
Papilio zelicaon - 20 papers
Papilio joanae - 3 papers- (one by Hammond and McCorkle 1990, F. Sperling
1996 and Covell mentioned it in the KY leps Newsletter in 1986).

Seems like a paltry amount of attention for what is ecologically and
evolutionarily one of the most interesting entities in the Eastern US -
no?  Especially a big pretty one.  Almost as if it didn't exist - no?

And before I loose the thought -  I think most people who read Felix's
paper  in 1996 thought that it was a great paper.  For me, it confirmed
my predisposition based on the OD and discussions with those who knew the
taxon well. I got me off my duff and over to Missouri top see the animal
and its glade habitat.  So, is it a better paper now that The Committee
has stamped it with the seal of approval?  Not really - but maybe the
author feels better about it - I don't know?

What the 1996 paper did was to clearly demonstrated that "joanae" was an
entity,  And to be honest - I don't personally care at what taxonomic
level this entity is recognized.  But before that paper was published,
"better minds" could claim that "joanae"  was a figment of Richard
Heitzman's vivid imagination.  And that claim seems to have had a ripple
effect that inhibited research on entity "joanae".

>
>
> More importantly, I think it is time to consider carrying out this
> discussion based on evidence, not on the supposition of sinister
> conspiracies by powerful and faceless committees. John Shuey gives
> our committee far too much credit. He assumes a malevolent
> intelligence that just ain't there. The five of us on the committee
> all have PhD's, that's true. But so does Dr. Shuey, and he has just
> demonstrated that mistakes can be made if you read too much into a
> situation. Those who make stupid mistakes include John Shuey, who is
> actually paid to examine evidence carefully, as he pointed out in the
> discussion of data verification for Nature Conservancy decisions.
>

In the spirit of sinister conspiracies - Don't misinterpret me here. I
give The Committee almost no credit- despite the fact that I know most of
its members very well. Individually the members are indeed fine people
and scientists.  But under the bureaucratic cover of The Committee -
decisions that I consider to be somewhat flip have been made based on
evidence that none of the committee members would have dared submit to
the Lep Soc. Journal under their own names.  It seems that a Committee
that hopes to accomplish anything -

>  by raising the bar on
> the amount of evidence that is expected before taxonomic changes are
> accepted in field guides.
>
 -  would set a pretty high bar for itself.  No?  Committees, by their
very nature are often designed to to enable decision making in situations
where unilateral decisions are undesirable.  Committees can create
consensus if it includes key stake holders - but committees can also be
used to provide cover.

If a conspiracy does exist (and in the spirit of trying to avoid
mis-interpretation just let me say that I'm on on the borderline here so
folks can claim anything they want), it is that the somehow a decision
was made that the Lep Soc should be in the business of creating a stable
life list for other organizations.  To quote Mick Jagger - "Give me
cover".

>
> I think that a few less conspiracy assumptions might help the clarity
> of thinking here. We who are taxonomists (paid or not) are people
> just like John Shuey, whether he finds it convenient to use his
> "John" or his "Dr. Shuey" persona.
>
> Felix Sperling

And in honor of the arctic blast that besets me today (and don't read too
much into this either - its really cold today), persona  Juan is headed
south for a long weekend,

Adios amigos,
Juan Shuey




 
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