[tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwC scientificName: good or bad?

Jim Croft jim.croft at gmail.com
Fri Nov 19 08:06:40 CET 2010


Including the authors, dates and any thing else (with the exception of
the infraspecific rank and teh hybrid symbol and in botany) as part of
a thing called "the name" is an unholy abomination, a lexical
atrocity, an affront to logic and an insult the natural order of the
cosmos and any deity conceived by humankind.

In botany at least, the "name" (which I take to be the basic
communication handle for a taxon) is conventionally the genus plus the
species epithet (plus the infraspecies rank and the infraspecies name,
if present).  All else is protologue and other metadata (e. s.l. s.s,
taxonomic qualifiers) some of which may be essential for name
resolution, but metadata nevertheless.  In much communication, the
name can and does travel in the absense of its metadata; that is not
to say it is a good or a bad thing, only that it happens.  I am not
saying thi binominal approach is a good thing, in many respects
Linnaeus and the genus have a lot to answer for; but it what we have
been given to work with.

in zoology... well, who can say what evil lurks within... but if what
you say below is right, at least they got it right with the
authorship... ;)

I think it is a really bad move to attempt to redefine "name" so as to
include the name metadata to achieve some degree of name resolution
(basically the list of attributes does not end until you have almost a
complete bibliographic citation - is author abbreviation enough? no,
add the full author surname? no, add the author initials? no, add the
first name? no, add the transferring author? no, add the year of the
publication? no, add the journal? no, add the article title? no, add
the type specimen? no, add the... )

That is not to say these strings of the name and selected metadata are
not useful, perhaps even essential, in certain contexts; only that we
should not pretend or declare they are the "name".  They are something
else and we should find another "name" for them.  "Scientific name" is
not good enough as a normal person would interpret this as the latin
name

Fortunately I think nearly every modern application keeps all the bits
of the name and publication metadata separate in some form, so it is
just a matter of geekery to glue them together in whatever combination
we might require...

jim

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 9:57 AM,  <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> wrote:
> Well, that sounds fine to me, however you may note that the ICZN Code at least expressly states that authorship is *not* part of the scientific name:
>
> "Article 51. Citation of names of authors.
>
> 51.1. Optional use of names of authors. The name of the author does not form part of the name of a taxon and its citation is optional, although customary and often advisable."
>
> I vaguely remember this has been discussed before - would anyone care to comment further?
>
> Cheers - Tony
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Markus Döring [mailto:m.doering at mac.com]
>> Sent: Friday, 19 November 2010 9:49 AM
>> To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart); David Remsen
>> Cc: tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org List
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwC
>> scientificName: good or bad?
>>
>> Sorry if I wasnt clear, but definitely b)
>> Not all names can be easily reassembled with just the atoms. Autonyms need
>> a bit of caution, hybrid formulas surely wont fit into the atoms and
>> things like Inula L. (s.str.) or Valeriana officinalis s. str. wont be
>> possible either. dwc:scientificName should be the most complete
>> representation of the full name. The (redundant) atomised parts are a
>> recommended nice to have to avoid any name parsing.
>>
>> As a consumer this leads to trouble as there is no guarantee that all
>> terms exist. But the same problem exists with all of the ID terms and
>> their verbatim counterpart. Only additional best practice guidelines can
>> make sure we have the most important terms such as taxonRank or
>> taxonomicStatus available.
>>
>> Markus
>>
>>
>> On Nov 18, 2010, at 23:26, Tony.Rees at csiro.au wrote:
>>
>> > Just re-sending the message below because it bounced the first time.
>> >
>> >
>> > Markus/all,
>> >
>> > I guess my point is that (as I understand it) scientificName is a
>> required field in DwC, so the question is what it should be populated
>> with. If it is (e.g.) genus + species epithet + authority, then is it
>> beneficial to supply these fields individually / atomised as well, maybe
>> with other qualifiers as needed?
>> >
>> > Just looking for an example "best practice" here - or maybe it exists
>> somewhere and you can just point to it.
>> > in other words:
>> >
>> > (a)
>> > <scientificName>Homo sapiens</scientificName>
>> > <scientificNameAuthorship>Linnaeus, 1758</a>
>> >
>> > or (b):
>> > <scientificName>Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758</scientificName>
>> > <genus>Homo</genus>
>> > <specificEpithet>sapiens</specificEpithet>
>> > <scientificNameAuthorship>Linnaeus, 1758</a>
>> >
>> > if you get my drift...
>> >
>> > Regards  - Tony
>> >
>> > Tony Rees
>> > Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
>> > CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
>> > GPO Box 1538,
>> > Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
>> > Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
>> > Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
>> > e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
>> > Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/
>> > Biodiversity informatics research activities:
>> http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
>> > Personal info:
>> http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>> > http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
>
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-- 
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