Name Changes in Massonia

Tim Harvey zigur@hotmail.com
Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:59:56 PST

It is already clear to many that the current application of plant DNA sequencing methods equate to the age-old paradigm of searching under the streetlight. Unfortunately, egos and the pressure to publish overwhelm many attempts to do good science. Already, many, what might be termed 'state-of-the-art', studies have very quickly been shown to be premature or simply wrong at the species/genus level, and yet still papers are being published. I'd also be curious to know whether anyone knows of a mis-identified specimen being recognised from DNA sequencing data?
 
If one draws a parallel from human genetic research, which went from organelle sequencing to full genome, it seems people never learn (but you can publish papers pretending that you are trying). Even then, when the full human genome was sequenced, did we learn much? Not really ...
 
 T
 
> We will one day very soon be defining a species by 
> its DNA, and the old definitions of "species" -- all of them, and several 
> were really never very good anyway and all of them had problems -- will be 
> lost sight of as science focuses on the molecular.
 		 	   		  



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