The Death of Taxonomy and Systematics ?
http://www.the-scientist.com/2009/06/1/32/1/
Lamenting the "paradigm shift" in biology from studying the organism to studying the genome. Can't we study both? Taxonomy and systematics are still being done effectively, but the jobs are drying up. Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: The Death of Taxonomy and Systematics ?
Quote:
I'd rather a more casual study of specimens after being informed by the genomics. And, the fewer species that are identified, the fewer costly bridges over highways and fewer dam bypasses. While I'm sensitive to species groups going extinct; saving one of dozens of barely discernible species is another cost I'd rather not bear. IWO, a stickle-back with a marginally longer stickle going extinct, even if it is a different species from other-lengthed-sticklebacks, is something stickleback-huggers should pay for themselves. It would bother me if the last species of stickleback is about to be gone. |
Re: The Death of Taxonomy and Systematics ?
Hi Tom, thanks for your thoughts!
There are short term costs and there are long term costs. Sometimes the long term costs of something aren't obvious for a long time. My perspective is that we are very far from a complete understanding of how genes construct organisms, in fact in a sense it appears that we've just discovered the basic principles, that's what makes molecular biology so exciting. So we really don't know the long term cost of incompleteness of our ongoing historical catalog. |
Re: The Death of Taxonomy and Systematics ?
Quote:
|
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:51 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright © 1995-2023 Liviant Internet LLC. All rights reserved.