Open Access‘Integrative taxonomy’ then and now: a response to Dayrat (2005)
Author(s) -
VALDECASAS ANTONIO G.,
WILLIAMS DAVID,
WHEELER QUENTIN D.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
biological journal of the linnean society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.906
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1095-8312
pISSN - 0024-4066
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2007.00919.x
Subject(s) - taxonomy (biology) , biology , pooling , epistemology , zoology , artificial intelligence , computer science , philosophy
Deep misunderstandings still besiege taxonomy after more than 200 years of fruitful output. It has been asserted in this journal that taxonomy should be integrative and conform to a series of restrictive guidelines. We show that taxonomy has been integrative for most of its history although, in our sense, integrative does not mean the indiscriminate pooling of any source of data. The guidelines proposed are not founded in good scientific rationale and can have, if followed, a detrimental effect not only on taxonomy, but also on biology as a whole. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2008, 93 , 211–216.