I’m sorry, but “too short and badly written” is hardly a convincing defence for what was an insulting article. It may have been submitted with the best of intentions, but if even the most empathetic readers (taxonomists, like myself) fail to see Dr. Strona’s letter as anything but a(nother) slap in the face, then I highly doubt it will have any of the intended consequences on the rest of the scientific population.

Nature reaches an audience many thousands of times larger than my measly little site, and so any objection to the original, as well as any defence/explanation of the author’s intentions will go completely unheard by those who most need to read it. Sometimes trying to say something and failing is worse than saying nothing at all.

In part, this is due to the code itself, in my case the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature that does not require ecologists, molecular biologists (among others) and us to present the reference to the paper that proposed the cited species in their papers. If this were done, we would likely increase the citation of our papers on taxonomy. The code, however, was not created in a time in which citation was as valued as today.

However, it is my feeling that this “game” of impact factor, especially those produced by biased methods, can not last forever since the cost to the science of biology may too high. The number o factual citations of a paper has nothing to do with the quality of the work; it has to do with how popular that specific subject is during the next 2-4 years after publication. The logic is very simple. If a same lab is capable of publishing non-taxonomy papers in journals with high IF but cannot find journals with comparable IF for his/her manuscripts in taxonomy, the issue is clearly NOT the difference in quality, correct? It is an unfair game. Many of those journals with high IF in biology have eliminated taxonomy as a scope since it presumably yields low OFFICIAL citation counts!

Young professor trained in taxonomy, many of which I know (and that includes Dr Strona himself – he has many papers in basic taxonomy), are trying to survive in a severe environment that considers taxonomy a less-scientific field. Many are obligated to switch into more popular areas in order to get a job. That certainly increases the so-called taxonomic impediment to the point that the science of taxonomy may be lost for good in the near future and we, as science, will have to learn it all over again! Fortunately, some countries, like Brazil, are lagging on this tendency and taxonomists are not under the same pressure. Maybe these countries will represent the “refugia” for taxonomy when the rest of the world finally understands the damage of the present system of evaluation. When WE actually understand that quality and popularity are NOT each other proxies.

Finally, sorry for misreading you text, Dr. Strona. I am sure that the “soul” of your intended message was loss in editing and by an ambiguous title that suggested disapproval.”

I liked the text a lot. I guess I will follow the suggestion and will “stop prostituting our research to the highest bidder, publish in higher impact journals, and resign ourselves to a future void of funding, respect, or job security.” 😀