In a letter by the leadership of the ASPT ("Letter re GLOVAP from ASPT Leadership to Society"), concern was raised in April of 2018 regarding "a controversial, self-published and apparently non-peer reviewed manuscript appeared online, proposing an unprecedented number of taxonomic changes for vascular plants" :
https://aspt.squarespace.com/news-blog/2018/letter-re-glovap-from-aspt-leadership-to-society#.XFGRCoXjGlk
... a major incidence of violating long-standing, ethical research practices!
Here an extract of the main allegations made therein:
"There are serious allegations from many sources that the work of a number of researchers has been “scooped” in the GLOVAP publication....
.... this would be contrary to accepted practice in our community. Because the legitimacy of names is based on the principle of priority, authorship of the new names now belongs to the GLOVAP authors and not to the taxonomic specialists on whose research the changes were based, and whose opportunities for proposing revised nomenclature and publishing taxonomic decisions have now been curtailed....
.... the botanical community has long maintained the ethical position that scientists do not publish new nomenclature based on the work of others without due diligence to work collaboratively. This is a norm of ethical conduct practiced across scientific disciplines, ....
Many groups, even after years of study, remain in a state of phylogenetic uncertainty due to common issues like limited taxon sampling or insufficient data. Proposed taxonomic changes that are based upon poorly supported or conflicting phylogenetic results are potentially wrong; therefore, experts continue their work until a high degree of confidence is achieved, through additional data collection or analysis, prior to altering nomenclature and classification. This is why authors of phylogenetic studies often refrain from proposing nomenclatural changes until corroborating evidence is obtained....
Because the legitimacy of names is based on the principle of priority, authorship of the new names now belongs to the GLOVAP authors and not to the taxonomic specialists on whose research the changes were based, and whose opportunities for proposing revised nomenclature and publishing taxonomic decisions have now been curtailed....
We share the concerns of our community that GLOVAP represents neither good scientific practice, nor respect for taxonomic expertise and efforts by colleagues in the field of plant taxonomy...
....massive nomenclatural efforts by one or a few researchers, capitalizing on the work of many dozens of others who were excluded from the publication or from ultimately publishing the nomenclatural changes they had worked hard to define. ...
Such a demonstrable lack of solidarity among taxonomists can result in loss of confidence and unfortunate negative perceptions from those outside our field. ...
However, GLOVAP was not produced in the spirit of collaborative science cherished by our community."
Quoted from:
Specht C, Fishbein M, Doyle J et al.
Editorial, Systematic Botany (2018), 43(1): pp. 1–3
The American Society of Plant Taxonomists
DOI 10.1600/036364418X697157
Date of publication April 18, 2018
https://aspt.squarespace.com/news-blog/2018/letter-re-glovap-from-aspt-leadership-to-society#.XFGRCoXjGlk
I was curious as to how the community has meanwhile perceived and reacted to this and the repercussions of this issue.
Discussion and comments welcome!
Sincerely, Theodor C. H. Cole
The initial question has been: how to adquately handle this situation? One of the proposed remedies was: achieve consensus before rushig a paper through the press. On this recipe I am sceptical: too many genera are now in general use which, when published, would never have achieved consensus. Think of Rafinesque!
My answer to the initial question is: make up your own, informed mind! If the proposed classification (which is the cause for all those nomenclatural novelties) is sound, at least according to the now consensual [!] paradigm of monophyly of taxa, it will achieve consensus; if not, it will clutter synonymy.
Publishing new names and combinations is nothing harmful per se; even though it may be a nuisance by causing unnecessary [or unwelcome] work to many, including indexers, taxonomists and all other users of names. So it would seem a wise course to promote those classifications, provided they are phylogenetically sound, that cause the smallest number of renamings. One example is the merger of some large, well known Rosaceous genera such as Sorbus and Crataegus under a dramatically enlarged Pyrus, under which, at species level alone, 850 novelties were proposed for GLOVAP purposes. True, the genus Sorbus as currently defined is unnatural; but by accepting existing generic splits in it (under which most combinations have long been made), the number of nomenclatural novelties could have been minimised. This is what a sensible review might have suggested, even without resulting in undue taxonomic censorship.
Taxonomic outputs should be published after adequate studies.
I have not seen the publication but if it complies with the rules laid down by the ICN nothing can be done now.
If the combinations are unnecessary and the new species are not good, they can be pointed out in new publications.
Some authors are misusing the typification of names and they are selecting lectotypes/neotypes at random.
No way to check!
Dear Ted
"GLOVAP" publication certainly raised some issues in the practice of global floras and plant taxonomy. Usually, we expect that a global flora project would be approached as a large scale international collaboration in the 21st century, instead GLOVAP is arguably in the tradition of the flora writing of the 18th century. Well, this is not necessary negative but a bit surprising. One consequence is the lack of the consensus discussions that are required if many experts are involved. Introducing new combinations is not difficult and may be actually helpful to some degree. Of course, introducing many new combinations carries the risks that some of combinations may be illegal because it is very time consuming to check the literature for all taxa. In my opinion, GLOVAP is also an interesting illustration that taxonomic treatment reflect often different opinions on the interpretation of research results. Arguably, consensus agreement among experts is the only approach to limit the impact of the ambiguity inherited in taxonomic treatments. Several other aspects may need to be discussed beside the few issues raised here.
The initial question has been: how to adquately handle this situation? One of the proposed remedies was: achieve consensus before rushig a paper through the press. On this recipe I am sceptical: too many genera are now in general use which, when published, would never have achieved consensus. Think of Rafinesque!
My answer to the initial question is: make up your own, informed mind! If the proposed classification (which is the cause for all those nomenclatural novelties) is sound, at least according to the now consensual [!] paradigm of monophyly of taxa, it will achieve consensus; if not, it will clutter synonymy.
Publishing new names and combinations is nothing harmful per se; even though it may be a nuisance by causing unnecessary [or unwelcome] work to many, including indexers, taxonomists and all other users of names. So it would seem a wise course to promote those classifications, provided they are phylogenetically sound, that cause the smallest number of renamings. One example is the merger of some large, well known Rosaceous genera such as Sorbus and Crataegus under a dramatically enlarged Pyrus, under which, at species level alone, 850 novelties were proposed for GLOVAP purposes. True, the genus Sorbus as currently defined is unnatural; but by accepting existing generic splits in it (under which most combinations have long been made), the number of nomenclatural novelties could have been minimised. This is what a sensible review might have suggested, even without resulting in undue taxonomic censorship.
1) Acceptance of taxonomic changes is by subsequent adoption (or not). Except for typifications, all else can be accepted or rejected by the community.
2) Peer review is not a panacea. Horrible papers have passed peer reviews, and some un-reviewed books are exquisite.
3) Major contributions (monographs) tend to be un-reviewed, but those often catapult the group to a new level of understanding.
4) Errare humanum est. We all have made mistakes, with larger works there are more mistakes. They will need to be fixed, but so do other mistakes throughout the literature. The only strategy of ensuring no mistakes is not publishing at all.
5) Is there a modicum of envy laced into the critique? Getting a large work published, warts and all, is hard.
6) Bottom line: there is no problem.
I cite here an extract of the letter to show what the issue actually was:
"ethical research practices ...
There are serious allegations from many sources that the work of a number of researchers has been “scooped” in the GLOVAP publication....
.... this would be contrary to accepted practice in our community. Because the legitimacy of names is based on the principle of priority, authorship of the new names now belongs to the GLOVAP authors and not to the taxonomic specialists on whose research the changes were based, and whose opportunities for proposing revised nomenclature and publishing taxonomic decisions have now been curtailed....
.... the botanical community has long maintained the ethical position that scientists do not publish new nomenclature based on the work of others without due diligence to work collaboratively. This is a norm of ethical conduct practiced across scientific disciplines, ....
Many groups, even after years of study, remain in a state of phylogenetic uncertainty due to common issues like limited taxon sampling or insufficient data. Proposed taxonomic changes that are based upon poorly supported or conflicting phylogenetic results are potentially wrong; therefore, experts continue their work until a high degree of confidence is achieved, through additional data collection or analysis, prior to altering nomenclature and classification. This is why authors of phylogenetic studies often refrain from proposing nomenclatural changes until corroborating evidence is obtained....
Because the legitimacy of names is based on the principle of priority, authorship of the new names now belongs to the GLOVAP authors and not to the taxonomic specialists on whose research the changes were based, and whose opportunities for proposing revised nomenclature and publishing taxonomic decisions have now been curtailed....
We share the concerns of our community that GLOVAP represents neither good scientific practice, nor respect for taxonomic expertise and efforts by colleagues in the field of plant taxonomy...
....massive nomenclatural efforts by one or a few researchers, capitalizing on the work of many dozens of others who were excluded from the publication or from ultimately publishing the nomenclatural changes they had worked hard to define. ...
Such a demonstrable lack of solidarity among taxonomists can result in loss of confidence and unfortunate negative perceptions from those outside our field. ...
However, GLOVAP was not produced in the spirit of collaborative science cherished by our community."
Quoted from:
Specht C, Fishbein M, Doyle J et al.
Editorial, Systematic Botany (2018), 43(1): pp. 1–3
The American Society of Plant Taxonomists
DOI 10.1600/036364418X697157
Date of publication April 18, 2018
Geiger's comments are outright offensive, ignorant, and disrespectful ! ... and chiefly wrong!
The issue here is "ethical", he does not seem to get this at all ! Sad ! ... reading the "Letter" might help!
His accusation of "envy" is derogatory and outrageous, as much as his attempt to ignore that there is a problem with this at all despite the uproar in the community! I don't want this sort of sentiments here, we don't deserve this! ... but I will leave it to the others to decide to "Report" this to have it removed!
The fact that they did not send their rebuttal to Systematic Botany (who certainly would've published it), but rather simply uploaded it to their own platform, speaks for itself!
Ch & B are certainly welcome to post their response letter to ASPT here!
It would be interesting to see whether they are making the same allegations of "envy" and dare to publicly present their rebuttal so that everybody could respond!
I agree with the points made by Werner Greuther. Consensus approaches or registration approaches have there limitations and may not be only difficult to apply but actually may result in the opposite we want to achieve. Introducing new combinations (also if they are superfluous) is not negative. Taxonomic progress depends on research that clarifies the relationships. Thus, we may want to trust a bit into the scientific progress (positivistic approach). Of course, classifications are human made translations of the phylogenetic relationships recovered. Having combinations available may support the process.
Re ethics, in zoology there is appendix A, code of ethics, which gives an person 1 year time to publish a taxonomic find. After that, it is a free for all. Without knowing all the details, I assume that this book took more than one year to complete.
I have also seen people claiming taxonomic "territory" and not producing, and that is counterproductive to the field [consider "wide reflective equilibria" assessment in ethics]. Just sent a memorial volume as senior editor to the printer for matter that was "in the works" for over 60 years. That is too much!
And re difficulty of publishing large bodies of work, I also have a bit of experience there. Four books out, largest 1291 pages, 1042 figs., took 12 years, with papers published all along. There are also plenty of book projects that never see the light of day.
As far as I can see, the book mainly has changed generic assignments, that's it! If a missed comb. nov. makes a dent in anybody's career, that would be sad. I'd be thankful to that person for taking boring house holding work off my plate, so that I can concentrate on more significant work.
If people with more detailed knowledge think this is a serious violation, they can apply to have the work suppressed for the purpose of nomenclatural acts. I cannot think of a successful case for a more modern work. The 1980's Kaicher Card Catalog case (with some other, possibly stronger reasons) was voted down in zoology.
I'm not a botanist, I have no stake in this.
If you don't like the taxonomy, including comb. nov.: ignore it.
If you don't like the nomenclature, especially if people who wanted to publish new names were scooped: apply to have the work suppressed for nomenclatural purposes.
Although I agree with the concerns raised and I´m anything but certain how to deal with GLOVAP in the end, we should not forget that this "publication" points at a serious systemic problem in recent systematic science. Molecular phylogenetics have become an end to itself instead being a tool to unravel relationships and outline taxa and providing evidence for taxonomic and nomenclatural consequences for the latter. (Correct) names are more important than ever in the context of biodiversity loss and conservation. The scientific community urgently needs to think about establishing rules how to present and label (molecular) phylogenetic results either as preliminary and treating them as work in progress or as (final) results with high certainty that mandatorily must be accompanied by a valid taxonomic treatment following the code. The fact that two decades of trend-science have produced an immense amount of evidence whose translation into valid taxonomy and nomenclature is simply not sexy enough to be published with an adequat impact is the core problem I think.
Sorry for getting a little off topic here.
Simply publish in journals that don't ask for how breathtakingly groundbreaking your manuscript is, like PLOS ONE or PeerJ.
I don't think it's always possible to draw a line between "work in progress" and "final result" in science.
David Marjanović
"Simply publish in journals that don't ask for how breathtakingly groundbreaking your manuscript is, like PLOS ONE or PeerJ."
I did and will do but a lot of research is done by candidates today and we all know their pressure to publish with a certain impact. Its a pity and its largely meaningless, but thats the reality.
"I don't think it's always possible to draw a line between "work in progress" and "final result" in science."
Agreed, but often enough it is, but there is no particular interest to publish anything else but trees and stats. Or it is postponed for later once the prioritised phylo-paper is out and then it never appears. Taxonomy is treated as the residual of "real" science and the taxonomic skills get lost, especially in western institutions. Don´t get me wrong, I appreciate and use phylogenetic methods and would never question their relevance, but a higher bootstrap support for a certain node will not save a single species. A reliable name on a list of taxa from a certain forest fragment in danger will probably do.
Tilo, I agree with your last sentence! A plant or animal needs to carry a name in order for politicians to protect it. Without a name (or a wrong name!), you don't seem to "exist"!
But I think our original question was: Who is entitled to coin these names! Just anybody? ... or should it be left to the expert! OK: if the expert doesn't within a whatever time frame, then let whoever feels like it do whatever he/she wants!?
That seems to be what we got right now, but the point was that there are many people out there that don't like this and Werner was proposing to add something to the Code to regulate this in some way or another to avoid too many bad vibes in the future!
Theodor C. H. Cole
I don´t really see a simple solution for this. The bad vibes in the GLOVAP case have certainly been anticipated and might have been even deliberately provoked!? I don´t expect that such approaches will be a common problem in the future. Adding a fixed time limit to the code after which the results are free to be used (taxonomically translated) by anybody will not work I think. Restricting them to the "expert" or creator forever in turn violates all scientific principles. Its up to the sanity and reason of the scientific community I guess. Better educating the students, raise their awareness for the problem and providing them with the necessary skills will definetely not make things worse.
"I did and will do but a lot of research is done by candidates today and we all know their pressure to publish with a certain impact. Its a pity and its largely meaningless, but thats the reality."
That's actually part of my point: PLOS ONE and PeerJ have impact factors around 3, much higher than the vast majority of specialist journals. That's a large part of the reason why I've published there.
Tilo raised an interesting point: How long shall a person wait before doing a revision (renaming species, genera ...) after other colleagues have published a new phylogeny revealing para- or polyphyly. The latter may not be trained or motivated to do this.
I would add the question: Should the latter become entitled to the right of priority in publishing the new name? ... and should this be defined through a clause in the Code?
Could this be done by an "embargo period" in the Code? An argument against this would be that this time would be "lost" to science (we would keep working with the old and phylogenetically incorrect names during that period)!
Zoologists have such a clause: see ICZN Appendix A, Code of Ethics.
The embargo period there is "not less than one year"!
Also, a colleague recently pointed to Appendix VI of the Botanical Code "Opera utique opressa" as a possible corrective for serious cases that may include ethically inappropriate publications.
Interesting discussion.
However do you think that all what is published about systematics is correct? Just asking. Thank you
"Tilo raised an interesting point: How long shall a person wait before doing a revision (renaming species, genera ...) after other colleagues have published a new phylogeny revealing para- or polyphyly. The latter may not be trained or motivated to do this."
Ask them. If they're not trained or motivated to revise the taxonomy, maybe they'll encourage you to do it.
ICZN Appendix A, the code of ethics https://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/includes/page.jsp?nfv=&booksection=appendixA , consists of recommendations, not rules. The one relevant here reads:
"2. A zoologist should not publish a new name if he or she has reason to believe that another person has already recognized the same taxon and intends to establish a name for it (or that the taxon is to be named in a posthumous work). A zoologist in such a position should communicate with the other person (or their representatives) and only feel free to establish a new name if that person has failed to do so in a reasonable period (not less than a year)."
I am following this trend with great interest. I would like to contribute my point of view: besides ethical concerns, GLOVAP proposals are -in my opinion- not scientific. What do I mean? Scientific knowledge is to be based not in opinion, but in results that are achieved through an explicit methodology and that can be verified or rejected by the use of such methodology and/or reinterpreted, rejected or verified by alternative/improved methodologies (better or alternative analyses, for example). GLOVAP does eventually mention what prompted them to do their proposals but the necessary background to judge and eventually check the results is not provided. Nomenclature and taxonomy are supposed to tie to the scientific method if they are to be considered as Sciences. If they are to tie to opinion alone, they should be considered as arts instead. Let's make taxonomy and nomenclature scientific by strictly following the scientific method.
Nomenclature is not a science, it is a set of conventions – not of testable hypotheses.
Phylogenetics is a science.
Taxonomy is a science only if you reduce it to the mechanical application of phylogenetic nomenclature to a phylogenetic tree: that way, "does organism X belong to taxon Y" becomes a testable hypothesis. Otherwise it's an art.
My point is that nomenclature and taxonomy are meant to be sciences and reliable as such!
Rodrigo B. Singer, David Marjanović reminds me of an earlier discussion: https://www.researchgate.net/post/One_of_the_main_characteristics_of_science_is_the_use_of_scientific_methods_is_taxonomy_a_science
But this is a different topic I think and the GLOVAP people didn't do anything different from what other taxonomists do. So this is not a particular GLOVAP related issue but a more general topic regarding taxonomy.
Esteemed Tilo Henning. Of course it is a problem that permeates taxonomy/nomenclature as a whole. Yet, if big works such as GLOVAP are going to be a rule/trend, the tendency is that such kind of problems will increase. By stricly adopting the scientific method part of the problem could be alleviated. As for GLOVAP specifically, I undersatnd the Code allows the "Nomina utique rejicienda" solution. This possibility could be considered, I think.
Jefferson Prado
"Change names without good scientific evidence (new data) is only trash. Reject names without good evidence is trash too."
Since you address me directly I have to point that out: I have with no word question that in any of my answers! And I did not justify or endorse unethical behavior.
"The above-mentioned option is the one adopted by
Christenhusz & al. (2018), but in an even more extreme version
because their circumscription of Hippeastrum includes
the entire tribe. Christenhusz and associates ignored the latest
literature on Hippeastreae phylogenetics (Meerow, 2010;
García & al., 2014, 2017) and, therefore, have overlooked
subtribal limits. Overall, we consider their classification of
Hippeastreae inappropriate because it oversimplifies this
tribe’s phylogenetic complexity (García & al., 2014, 2017).
Unfortunately, it has in our opinion already generated nomenclatural
noise within a group that is already nomenclaturally
overloaded (as a result of its complex and intricate taxonomic
history). Of the 178 new combinations or new names proposed
by Christenhusz & al. (2018) in Hippeastrum, we will only use
in the present classification those three corresponding to former
species of Tocantinia (here proposed as Hippeastrum
subg. Tocantinia comb. & stat. nov.; Büneker & al., 2016)."
--- from Garcia et al. 2019. Generic classification of Amaryllidaceae tribe Hippeastreae. TAXON 68: 481-498
As a quintessence to this discussion: One should listen to the specialist! I wouldn't ask a scholar in orchids to give me an expertise on, say, Boraginales !
Theodor, I don't know if I got you right. Of course, somebody who is a specialist in orchids shouldn't be your first choice for opinion in Boraginales. Yet, any specialist with a good background in general taxonomy and the scientific method (I insist! Taxonomy needs to get scientific and get rid of opinion!) can be consulted if you suspect that somebody "committed bad science". A bad typification choice (or lack of typification) can be detected irrespective of the taxonomic group. Jefferson Prado, for instance, is a well-known specialist in ferns. Yet, he is one of the Code specialists (actually, one of the main authors of the current Code). With all due respect, I cannot agree with this use of the principle of authority, at least not for all instances. Theodor C. H. Cole
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