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I obviously agree with David's take on the ICZN regarding retractions and nomina dubia. To answer Paul P., the specimen is incredibly diagnostic, with its pointy snout and big braincase for a lepidosaur, or pleurodont teeth, pointed coronoid process, open
lower temporal bar, weird scleral plates, etc. for a theropod. If the authors declare it undiagnostic, they would just be lying. And that's my main problem with this philosophy of looking for a "loophole" to make this a "new kind of nomen dubium"- giving
publishers or authors the right to delete their nomenclature and non-fraudulent work is unethical. No one gets special rights to erase their mistakes from the record.
Mickey Mortimer
From: dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu <dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu> on behalf of Paul P <turtlecroc@yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 4:23 PM To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu> Subject: Re: [dinosaur] RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar On Saturday, July 25, 2020, 09:18:37 PM UTC, Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com> wrote:
> the paper has become taxonomically unusable because it was retracted (as opposed to simply corrected) Again, and as suggested by David M, I don't think "retractions" per se make much sense, although they do happen. The cheetah paper mentioned by Tom H as an example was indeed "retracted"--several years later. All a retraction really does is alert people to ignore a given paper. But in this case, the name is valid and will always be available, if for nothing else than to cite as an example of what can happen when you rush something to press. That said, there might be a loophole. The authors could declare the specimen nondiagnostic and the name a nomen dubium--I mean, it must not be terribly diagnostic or they would have realized it was a squamate and not a bird, right?--and then name that new, better specimen something more apropos. (and take a year to doublecheck everything instead of trying to make a big splash.) Btw, how could Nature have initiated the retraction? Are you (Tom H) saying a third party informed Nature that the specimen wasn't a bird? Paul P. |