It seems to be best that informatics deals best with as objective, factual information, minimizing the gray area.

Regarding "subjective," however, taxonomists wrestle mightily with decisions every day, trying to make reasonable and fact-based name changes of benefit to all users of taxonomy. They use discursive logic based on examination of dozens or hundreds of specimens in the context of evolutionary theory, and this is not particularly subjective to me.

Yes, deciding which name is "correct" ("valid" for botanists) is a problem for those not familiar with the subject matter. Using the latest name is a good rule of thumb, although I've argued against the newest molecular phylogenetic names interminably in the past.

One might make an analogy with scientific theorization in other fields. Which theory is right, photon or wave? Is the world round or flat? Is the red shift a property of an expanding universe or a function of decreasing energy associated with intervening gravity wells? Is the value of pi different if you have a large enough circle, like one around the whole universe? Is the black maple a species or only a variety of the sugar maple?

Note that the above are, however some are strange, scientific questions. Scientific intuition helps solve them. Each question in valid/correct names needs a FermiLab of scientists to do the molecular, growth, ethology, allozyme, biogeography, cytology, population, and etc. studies needed to get a definitive answer.

This is why it is easy to say decisions are subjective when they are merely poorly funded. If every informatics person spent half his/her time in biosystematics work, these problems would be less "subjective."

* * * * * * * * * * * * Richard H. Zander Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/ and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm

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