2058: A Terrible Parable

Imagine it’s the year 2058. The three-hundredth anniversary of Linnaeus monumental advance in species exploration and classification. Unfortunately, for the growth of knowledge of our world’s species, molecular taxonomists, focused on identifying species rather than knowing them, won the war for funding in the 2020s. Natural history museums no longer awe visitors with displays of mind-boggling morphological diversity; they have become theme parks where children are “infotained” by exhibits focused on trendy issues taken from headlines in the popular press. Collecting specimens has come to be seen as insensitive; we should be hugging trees, not plucking their leaves, and while it is politically incorrect to collect an insect, they still sell fly swatters and commit mass insecticide with speeding automobile windscreens. Collections have been moved to remote warehouses. No longer shared with the public, effectively moth-balled, specimens are only studied occasionally by a dwindling number of visiting experts. Collections are no longer growing, but are a shrine to morphological ignorance. Taxon experts have been replaced by DNA sequencing technicians, ecologists, and conservationists. Although their research does not use collections, and could be done on any university campus, it signals that museums are engaged in popular issues; taxonomy and natural history are so yesterday. Even the DNA barcoding that dominates what passes for taxonomy has become an employment dead-end. Advances in AI and automated sequencing have virtually eliminated the need for human expertise. A few technicians feed samples into automated machinery that spits out sequenced whole genomes. Species and phylogenetic relationships are whatever the standard software package says they are; no further need for humans to think about homology or question branching patterns. It’s all very efficient. An efficiency is good.

Artist’s concept of first humans on Mars. So far, the prospects for visiting another species-rich planet are remote. Earth, for now, if not forever, is the one world on which we have the opportunity to explore the diversity and history of life. To arbitrarily limit knowledge to DNA data, when we have access to millions of novel, complex, and fascinating characters, is a disservice to science and humankind. Unless taxonomy is restored to its full form; unless we educate, inspire, and support a new generation to pursue morphological, fossil, and ontogenetic evidence, as well as DNA data, then we will have tragically limited what we ultimately know of biodiversity and evolutionary history. Restoring support to taxonomy, in its full form, should be an immediate, high priority. Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia23302-first-humans-on-mars-artists-concept/

Species are rapidly identified on demand. That nothing is known about species beyond a name seems not to bother anyone. This is the utilitarian utopia dreamed of by DNA barcoders from the start—no more interpretations of complex morphological characters, no need to waste hours examining specimens, no use for taxonomists with specialized knowledge. Technology has replaced expertise. And technology, as everyone knows, is good.

There are no descriptions beyond DNA sequences. For the vast majority of species, known only by DNA data, we have no idea what they look like, much less the combination of characters that make them unique. Morphology was abandoned long ago because it is old data. And old is bad. How important could data be if it was around centuries ago? We want new data. New is good. In an irony lost on molecular geneticists, sequence data has been around so long that it has become “old” data, too! But it still attracts grant money. And money is good.

Things are so much better now, than before. When you want to know what an insect species is, all you have to do is tear off a leg—don’t worry, it won’t feel a thing, stick it in your pocket-sized sequencer, and read its identity from a digital display. It’s so convenient to identify species without having to learn anything about them. The few stubborn amateurs who insist on recognizing species on sight are mocked as the Neanderthals, as they should be. Being thoroughly modern, no one believes an identification unless it is based on new data, on DNA. Morphology is as out of fashion as sex—babies, of course, are genetically engineered and grown in test tubes in this brave new world foreseen by Huxley. And new is good.

Everyone is excited because NASA has announced that, after decades of searching, a living creature has been discovered on a distant planet. Having moved beyond the primitive practice of collecting specimens, a robotic rover has taken a tiny tissue sample from one of them. Fortunately, it turns out that the creature has DNA of sorts, not quite like the DNA of earth species, but the six kinds of nucleic acid bases in its triple helix can be sequenced. On the front page of the New New York Times is a DNA barcode for the extraterrestrial. People marvel at the three-dimensional image printed as a rotating hologram in bright colors. It is so much more modern than images of morphology. And modern is good.

A consequence of the domination of new DNA data, and the repudiation of old data like morphology, had been the death of curiosity about attributes of species beyond strands of DNA in pairs…and now, triplets. Field guides with DNA data were as exciting as corporate spreadsheets, so no one used them after pocket sequencers hit the market. It had been so long since people engaged in the primitive practice of describing morphology that no even noticed when no specimens of the ET creature were collected or returned to Earth; after all, we had ultimate knowledge of the creature, we had a sequence of its entire genome: what more could we want? No one dared ask what the creature looked like, to do so would reveal you as a retrograde and invite the ire of geneticists who knew morphology was inferior to new data. We knew its genome. Knowledge was complete. Besides, because the morphology of earth species was no longer described, there was nothing for the morphology of the creature to be compared to.

Brave New Taxonomy was based entirely on DNA. And DNA was good. Everyone accepted that modern was better than old. That technology was better than human thought. That sequencing was more efficient and objective than comparative morphology. And that efficiency is more important than depth of knowledge. The goal of Brave New Taxonomy was not exploring and learning about species, characters and history to advance taxonomy; it was providing identifications for truly important sciences, like ecology. Sciences that receive most grant money. And in science, as everyone knows, money is good.

The goal of conservation had shifted from saving species to making habitats look pretty and be sustainably productive. New Habitats were comprised of generalist, adaptable, and genetically engineered plant species that were green, flowering, and beautiful, so no one cared that most native species were gone. Ecosystems had been manipulated, through trial-and-error species combinations, so that they remained as “productive” as those that had existed before mass extinction. Ecosystems that meet human needs for productivity was the goal of ecology and conservation, just as identifications were the new goal of taxonomy. Everything was relevant. And relevance is good.

The world had only a fraction of the biodiversity that had existed before, but that seemed not to matter. Every surviving species had a barcode, every field was green, and every refrigerator was full. Although science knew nothing about the characters of species, they could be identified with DNA barcodes and life was comfortable. And comfortable, even at the price of knowledge, is good.

While curiosity had been replaced by technology, there remained a taxonomy underground. A small number of nonconformists who dared to grind lenses for microscopes so that they could study morphology in detail. They smuggled secret descriptions of species among each other in a network that defied the establishment and its decree that taxonomy must be modern and DNA based, with pocket sequencers for all. It was unfair that experts could recognize species and average people could not. So, in the name of equity, only DNA data could be used. Any idiot with a pocket sequencer was now as competent, or perhaps incompetent, at identifying a species as any expert. No one knew any more about species than anyone else. Everyone was equal, and equal was good.

Whether we ever find life on another planet remains an open question. And, if or when ETs are discovered, whether they have DNA-like molecules as a genetic system may or may not be so. There is much we don’t know. And as we pursue DNA-based taxonomy, as we ignore morphology, taxonomic revisions, and natural history museums, much of it will remain unknown. Even though its progress is impressive, whether molecular-based taxonomy ultimately succeeds in killing curiosity, mothballing collections, and reducing taxonomy to a technical procedure remains to be seen. But we have traveled an alarming distance down that dead-end road toward self-imposed ignorance. There may be some DNA advocates who see a future based on a single data source as a bright one, but to me it would be an unmitigated disaster, an affront to the best traditions of science, and a tragic suppression of our innate curiosity to understand the world around us. But DNA is modern, and modern is good.

I prefer to imagine a different future. One in which we care as much about the combination of species in an ecosystem as the system’s productivity. One in which conservation is as concerned about the diversity of surviving species as their number. One in which the uniqueness of individual species, and the overall diversity of species, are celebrated in an effort to describe, in detail, every unique or shared character that is informative of species status or relationships. One in which we insist on knowing species, not merely identifying them. One in which technology is a tool used in the pursuit of knowledge, not a factor limiting the growth of knowledge. One in which our curiosity is permitted to run wild, to describe, marvel at, and trace the historic origins of the wondrous, complex, and endlessly diverse characters that make the exploration of species, and evolutionary history, so intellectually rewarding. One in which we honor other species by recognizing them as individuals, giving them names, and understanding what makes them special.

We do not have to wait to discover a new life form on a remote planet in the dark, vast void of space. We know already a planet in the Milky Way teaming with diverse life forms, most of which are unknown to science. Are they any less remarkable or interesting because they happen to live on the third planet from the Sun, instead of some other one? The time remaining to explore, discover, collect, study, name, describe, and classify the millions of species of our amazing planet is measured in decades, a couple of centuries at most. Passing up the opportunity to explore and know our planet’s species, gathering one source of evidence instead of many, ignoring the characters that make them most interesting and worth knowing, would be among the greatest scientific tragedies of all time.

Even worse, we are missing the chance to understand the diversity and evolution of life by choice. We have everything needed to increase, almost immediately, the rate of species discovery and description by an order of magnitude. We are missing this once in the life of a planet opportunity because taxonomy is a victim of character assassination promulgated by those ignorant of its theories and methods, those who want identifications only, not knowledge, and those who are disinclined to share research funding with taxonomists and museums.

Too many students are convinced that they must pursue DNA or risk never finding a job, never competing for grant money, never having a career in taxonomy. As things stand, that threat is shamefully real. In a rational world, each taxonomist would be free to choose, based on their personal interests, to specialize in studies of morphology, fossils, ontogeny, or DNA—or some combination of two or more. Knowledge is desperately needed in each of these areas, and each teaches us things unknowable from the others. It is anti-science to impose primacy for one source of evidence at the cost of remaining ignorant about the others.

If we fail to restore taxonomy to its full form, to inspire a new generation of taxon experts, to revitalize interest in morphology, revisions and monographs, to insist on the growth and development of natural history collections, until such time that they are a complete and accurate reflection of species diversity, and to organize an international mission to inventory all species, there will be two unthinkable consequences. First, because few species leave a fossil record, those we do not collect for museum collections will remain unknown, creating huge, irreparable holes in our understanding of biodiversity, ecosystems, and evolutionary history. And second, once millions of species are gone, there will be no second chances to explore and learn about the diversity and history of life on our planet. Threats to ecosystems and their productivity are soberingly real, but they are not the only dangers we face. Ignoring taxonomy and morphology, we impoverish science and our intellectual lives. With more than a little irony, it is in our DNA to be curious about the world, about the origins of species, including humans, about the diversity of life, about evolutionary descent with transformation, and about characters. To deny our curiosity in order to be popular, to appear modern, to compete more favorably for grant money is scientific malpractice. As scientists, we should be committed to the growth of knowledge; as taxonomists, we should reject and resist any and all obstacles set in the way of exploring species, characters, and history.

We have unequivocal evidence of a fast-approaching mass extinction and we are aware that knowledge of millions of species will be lost if we fail to inventory, describe, and classify them. This is not a time to cut corners, to settle for DNA barcodes when we can have knowledge of more, and more informative, characters. This is not a time to follow fads, fashions, and funding trends; it is a time to fight for a taxonomic renaissance, before the chance to explore species has passed. This is not a time to kneel at the altar of technology, but to insist on putting knowledge first. And this is not a time to mothball collections; it is a time to insist on their growth, development, and use.

Future generations of biologists, struggling to adapt to life on a species-impoverished planet, will find it difficult to understand why we failed to prioritize species exploration. Little time remains to organize a mission to explore and inventory species, to make natural history museums a reflection of biodiversity. We must prioritize collections and the creation of taxonomic knowledge, before it is too late. No objective person can argue that DNA tells us more than millions and millions of novel and complex characters; that a naked branching diagram is preferable one on which characters are mapped; or, that random efforts to conserve biodiversity have a better chance of success saving diverse species than goals informed by knowledge of species and their relationships.

Sooner or later, fads pass. DNA data has lasting, valuable, exciting uses in taxonomy. But its current elevated status, its disproportionate funding and influence, its perceived newness will all fade away. In comparison to morphology, DNA pales in significance for knowing and understanding species and their history. Species are inherently interesting in large part because of their morphological diversity. If every species was identical, differing only in DNA sequences, then DNA-based taxonomy would make perfect sense. But, there would be little interest in exploring such monotonous species, or reconstructing the history of their origins. “Oh look! These two identical species are more closely related to each other than that to other identical species, and they descended from an ancestor that looks just like them!” Were that the case, Aristotle would not have contemplated similarities and differences among species; Linnaeus would not have set out to describe their differences; Hennig would not have wrestled with the interpretation of homologues and synapomorphies; and taxonomy would as boring, as purely utilitarian, as DNA barcoders are trying to make it.

With the approaching mass extinction, the time to act is now. If we reawaken curiosity, if we create a taxonomic renaissance, if we commit to a planetary-scale species inventory, if we prioritize knowledge over technology, if we rediscover the greatest purpose of natural history museums, and if we return to revisionary taxonomy, we can amass specimens and knowledge of the diversity and history of species, before it is too late. We must reject the toxic influences of funding, technology and popularity, refocusing on taxonomy’s fundamentals, and its mission that is unchanged in hundreds of years—and that is more relevant and urgent today than ever before.

With intentionality or not, we are the authors writing taxonomy’s future. Will the future we write be one inspired by curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge, or one shaped by fashion and practical needs of other disciplines? Will we put taxonomy back on course to inventory, describe, understand, and classify life, or continue to treat it as an identification service? Will we develop DNA data as a valuable tool—of use from making identifications to filling gaps in the connections between genome, ontogeny, and complex morphological structures—or use it, as at present, as an inferior substitute for traditional taxonomy? Will we rise to meet the challenge of preserving specimens and knowledge of life, or continue to be slaves to technology and pop-science?

We decide which path taxonomy follows. Will it continue to be dumbed-down, rely on a single source of data, and be subservient to other sciences? Or will it have the vision and courage to re-embrace its own mission? As a taxonomist, the choice is obvious. Yet, we have been compliant with fads and fashions so long that our voice is muted. We either find our voice now and make it heard, defending the mission, high standards, and excellence of taxonomy, or we risk permanent ignorance and servitude. It is time to take a stand. To reassert taxonomy’s independence. To clarify its mission. To synthesize diverse evidence. To make identifications a by-product of knowledge, not an end in themselves.

If non-taxonomists need practical reasons to support taxonomy, there are compelling ones. Knowledge of species and relationships are necessary if we are to conserve as many, and as diverse, species as possible. And, knowledge of characters is necessary if we are to empower biomimicry to solve problems. For me, the most compelling reason to support taxonomy is curiosity: curiosity to know what species exist, what characters make them unique, how they are related, and the sequence of transformations by which their diversity came to be.

It is appropriate that we colonize Mars. But exploring earth’s species and their evolutionary history is as much a part of our intellectual destiny as traveling to other planets. Our curiosity about the similarities and differences among species, and our place among them, has not faded in the centuries since Aristotle. This curiosity is a part of who we are, of what makes us human. It will never go away. But the opportunity to create deep, detailed knowledge of species and characters will. We owe it to ourselves and posterity to assemble collections and create knowledge as a permanent record of species and characters about to disappear. This can only be accomplished by fundamental taxonomy pursued as an independent science to its own highest standards. And fundamental taxonomy, pursued as an independent science to its highest standards, is good.

References

Huxley, Aldous. 1932. Brave New World. Chatto & Windus, London.

Wheeler, Q.D., Knapp, S., Stevenson, D.W., et al. 2012. Mapping the biosphere: exploring species to understand the origin, organization and sustainability of biodiversity. Systematics and Biodiversity 10: 1-20.