Field of Science

Public service announcement: animals-fungi-plants != eukaryote-wide

Was just perusing some high impact factor journals before going to sleep, and every other week or the following little detail makes my blood boil:

Someone claims to have done a eukaryote-wide analysis, or something pertaining to eukaryotic evolution, in the title; excitedly, I click, only to find out the eukaryote-wide analysis was metazoa-wide with some yeasts thrown on, maybe Arabidopsis if we're really lucky.

Since I'm in a rather grumpy mood today already, finally slapped together this quick little announcement I've been meaning to make in a while:

(yes I'm lazy and just modified the Tree of Roots published earlier...sue me.)

That's all. Just had to let it out. How can trained biologists be so ignorant about basic biology!? Shouldn't you know at least a little bit about the relatives and evolutionary history of the organisms you work with; shouldn't you be even a little bit curious, at least enough to actually know a thing or two about something as basic as the general scope of eukaryotic diversity? Is that asking for too much?! If an undergrad with a 2.0 GPA can swallow this, why can't tenured faculty at high-ranking famous instutitions?

At least I don't see implicit (animals,plants),fungi too much lately, only once in a blue moon. Maybe because I don't read as much hardcore cell biology literature anymore...

5 comments:

  1. Thank you! Is this one of those super exclusive clubs where we get free gourmet cousine and luxuious alcoholic beverages all day? Or did I sign up for the wrong thing again? ^_~

    ReplyDelete
  2. Umm, I have some bad news... :) still, the natives are pretty friendly so it;s not all bad!

    ReplyDelete

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