Talk:Austin Mast

Lack of notability

Guys who work in cladistics do what this guy does all the time; figure out the relatedness of clades of organisms. This guy has corrected the phylogeny of the Grevilleoideae, but that is what they all do; grind through a taxa and supplement the old morphological work with newer technologies. Every time I have attended a job talk for people who are in this line of work, they have always made sure to emphasize their contribution to cladistics and/or DNA technology, not to the taxa involved, since they cannot get hired just for correcting the phylogeny. Abductive (reasoning) 15:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

He has been the principal author in the analysis and (almost complete) overhaul of two prominent australian plant genera, Banksia and Dryandra - this is one of the criteria for notability. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:49, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

and most recently Macadamia. Hesperian 23:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

And the secondary source that says that such overhaul was important? Abductive (reasoning) 22:34, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

There has been a consensus to reclassify all the 90-odd species of dryandra as banksia, and it has been largely followed in Australian botany, although there has been some resistance in Western Australia. Hence we have a major overhaul of two genera which are important ecologically and horticulturally. Furthermore, the macadamia is Australia's only commercial native food plant. Will look to add this to the article if Hesperian has not already beaten me to it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

But no third party source says that changing the names around meant anything. It's not like the plants care what we call them, I doubt that farmers care. If anybody cared, shouldn't you be able to produce a source from somewhere saying, "neato, this scientist from Florida Austin Mast transferred all Dryandra taxa to Banksia."? Abductive (reasoning) 02:07, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I am just going through Australia's State (and National) Herbariums (i.e. official naming bodies) as we speak. I have added a source that the WA herbarium has adopted, and the National Herbarium has a link to the WA herbarium's page. I have spoken with botanists from NSW who fully support the changes, and am looking for written sources now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Stevens over at the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website has adopted it too; see the Proteales page, under Grevilleoideae: "Banksia (175: inc. Dryandra, see Mast et al. 2005)" However I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Abductive doesn't want to hear that Mast's work was accepted; he wants to hear that it was remarkable. Hesperian 02:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Problem is, most popular periodicals are more interested in ***** ***** (substitute any famous person + scandal you like) rather than interesting scientific stuff. However, there is the O'Neill article as a commentary to add. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I know. I endorse the "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" primary notability criterion, but it must be admitted that it suffer one great fault: it indulges the cult of celebrity. Mast has far more notability than Ronn Moss will ever have, but Moss has more celebrity. A count of reliable sources fails to distinguish between notability and celebrity; hence Moss is universally accepted as notable, while we have to mount an argument for Mast. It's a ludicrous situation really. Hesperian 04:00, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Please, all you need is a review article by somebody other than Mast saying that Mast did good work. Abductive (reasoning) 08:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not quite as simple as that in fields where research on an aspect might wait years or decades before official written overhauls (which happens with some genera). The WA (i.e. Western Australian) Herbarium is the official Herbarium for the state of Western Australia, where all these Dryandras and most Banksias occur. The WA and National herbaria have information on their websites indicating they support the changes. Furthermore, Mast's research has been incorporated by Peter Weston of the New South Wales Herbarium in this paper and if you read it an upcoming reclassification of the proteaceae. Thus there is ample evidence of widespread acceptance of the changes. Hence, fulfilling criteria 1 of Wikipedia:Notability (academics), and the renaming headache fulfilling criteria 7 (plant nurseries and cut flower industry folks ain't too happy). Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. If it means a guy at a herbarium has to rearrange his files I can't imagine anything more local. Scientific results such as Dr Mast's are primary sources. With great regularity, good or bad work is pounced upon and mentioned in review articles. Once something is in review articles, then we here at Wikipedia can say it is notable. By the standards of WP:PROF, Mast isn't notable, and by the standards of WP:GNG he isn't either. When I prod-tagged the article I already had done all the research to determine this; unless I have made some sort of error, which it looks like I haven't. Abductive (reasoning) 13:25, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

No, have you been to a plant nursery? They have scientific names on plant tags, as would government documents relating to plants under endangered species acts. Have you looked at the PDF I just linked to above? That is a secondary source reviewing generic arrangements in the family proteaceae. as I said, the situation is trickier when the numbers of articles published on the subject are several orders of magnitude less than medical ones (as a comparison). Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, but tags in a nursery hardly constitute secondary sources. Abductive (reasoning) 13:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

True, but we're talking about impact outside of academia. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

PS: Line one says - "If an academic/professor meets any one of the following conditions" - any being the significant (and italicised) word. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you know that our article on Banksia doesn't mention Mast? Abductive (reasoning) 13:36, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

That's because we placed all the taxonomy stuff into taxonomy of banksia - the banksia article was one of the first articles I worked on here and I have not revisited it much recently.

PS: The linked article above states that the author Peter Weston is using the material for this book. I don't have a spare 250 quid to get a copy though and double check, but I will get to a library at some stage to highlight how far teh revision has been adopted. That is the best I can do. The other thing I have found writing Featured Articles is one often still needs to get paper material (i.e. books) for completeness of referencing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

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