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BGF - Get a grip on reality - truth is not fraud


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ The Taxonomy Forum ]

Posted by rayhoser on December 26, 2002 at 16:43:32:

In Reply to: Actually... posted by BGF on December 26, 2002 at 15:39:15:

Mere placement of the corrrect names of the taxa, you erroneously called "praelongus" and the Ceram groenveldi, but had correctly placed in your tree as separate taxa is not fraud.
Also your statement above is not correct either.
You used the Hoser 1998 names in your paper (at the start) and you then made it clear that due to your dislike of myself you would be pigheaded and not use them in the rest of the paper. Why not put the paper on the www and a link to it. I suppose it's a bit of a pity you never sent myself and other serious Acanthophis researchers a copy and that in my case I obtained it via a circuitious route via a Museum Curator, who was himself passed it from elsewhere.
BTW Before I named the Isa Adder in 1998 as woolfi, it was generally known as a form of antarcticus - not praelongus as you erroneously stated in your paper.
The error on your part is totally understandable as it comes from a johnny-come-lately in the field of herp, who misguidedly thinks that by scoring some venoms from a few private keepers (and without any knowledge of the snakes themselves) and then running them through a few simple tests gives you some sort of expertise on these snakes.
Sorry, it doesn't, and it never will! And that actually shows in your few published acanthophis papers.
I'm sure you'd be aware of the basic fact that Dave Shumack and Merlin Howden at Macquarie University in Sydney did much the same sorts of tests on adder venoms I supplied them more than 20 years ago! long before you even considered an interest in these creatures - so you are hardly a pioneer as you may like to make out.
Now BGF, the mere addition to a table of correct names and in different and identifiable font to the original of the proper names of taxa, your own tests identifies is not fraud. It is common sense! Me thinks you should have done that in the first place!
The placements of the taxa and all other things are your original table (minor errors and all) and so cannot possibly be fraudulent - me also thinks that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
As it happens, you'd be better off cutting while your ahead and thanking your lucky stars that your tests with all their inherant limitations did in fact reveal the true taxonomic positions of the various taxa.
However, I must say, I'd question the distance apart you placed woolfi and hawkei on your diagram, which myself and all others with hands-on experience with these snakes regard as being very closely related taxa.
I could go on in terms of other misplacements and minor errors in your paper, but would rather not get involved in a nit-picking exercise, as like I said before, the general thrust of the paper by you and others is essentially correct as it vindicates my original division of the Australian and north of Australian Acanthophis into the dozen or more taxa formally named in my papers of 1998 and 2002.
ALL THE BEST


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