Delete comment from: SemAnt
As an aside, I suspect that "taxonomic concepts" are really not data but inferences. If we had all the ant taxonomic literature digitised, complete with synonym lists, and we have some basic inference rules derived form the rules of nomenclature, then can't we simply compute the current name? This may be wishful thinking, but I think what matters are the names, and relationships between them.
Indeed, if we have that, then we may not need to worry too much about accepted names. We make a choice of name based on whatever classification we prefer. What I suspect will happen is that, once people realise that we could compute what a name means in two different classifications, then the issue will fade.
Jul 2, 2006, 7:33:00 PM
Posted to Classification