Message

EDITOR'S NOTE. Lepidopterist Dr. Kurt Johnson, co-author of "NABOKOV'S BLUES. The Scientific Odyssey of a Literary Genius" and author of numerous articles offers some sound advice here. As recently as two weeks ago, I overlooked an article I had previously read, in a note of my own here that inadvertently duplicated the findings of that essay. Not only is this sort of thing testimony to a failing memory but to excessive reliance on digital data bases.

Very generally, I have a concern that we try to do our best and not get the "anecdotes" on Nabokov Forum to far off from "the facts" (or various versions of the facts) when it comes to the science issues or what is in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Victoria is right that "the rules have changed" in the last few years-- substantially freeing up the question of "what is" or "isn't" the way to do science, even in evolutionary biology-- but we have to be careful about misrepresenting, or oversimplying, the scientific literature (or at least recognizing that the peer-reviewed literature has LOTS of points of view). This is NOT to say that anyone is doing this on Nabokov Forum but I want to make a note of caution, below, in some detail. Although the "rules changes" [in short, e.g. basically, in deductive/Popperian science you can hypothesize, predict, and test almost any view you want etc., with whatever set of assumptions you want etc.-- which ends up meaning that many different camps now claim to be "what's really happening" etc. and also sometimes feel free to simply dismiss the work of others (even if in the peer-reviewed literature) as irrelevant, etc.] we still should oversimplify or ignore the breadth of the peer-reviewed literature that is out there.

Specifically, I want to point out (but it is NOT to disagree with Dieter Zimmer for the sake of disagreeing) that there is a rich recent peer-reviewed scientific literature about the importance/commoness/ effectiveness of imperfect mimicry in nature, with some scientists thinking that effective imperfect mimicry is even more common/important among overall natural strategies than the classic "variously perfect" forms of mimicry. In fact, this literature, although it is basically on insects other than butterflies, is rich enough that it has even made it to the "second tier" of scientific publications (see my explanation of these tiers in my initial paper on Nabokov in Nabokov Studies), that is, chapters in books about biological phenomenon demonstrated enough in the general literature to warrant chapters in book "synthesizing" results of recent research. (I was recently sent a book chapter on this subject by someone to review, although it may still not be in print). I cited a number of these papers, and reviewed the issue of imperfect mimicry, in the paper that I gave at the ALA meetings at Harvard (tho' I need to get this long paper into print to make this information "really" available). Dieter's comments, which may have been offhand, that there is no evidence out there about imperfect mimicry overlooks this literature.

Regarding Victoria's comments on mimicry one has to remember there is a HUGE historical literature on this subject in the peer-reviewed scientific journals beginning first with the circumstantial evidence pointing to mimicry (prior to the 70's or so), then the lab/field work on predator/prey studies (70's onward, a significant literature), then a huge literature on the genetics and populations genetics of mimicry, particularly on Heliconius, danaid, and papilionid butterflies (70's onward) (with lots of synthetic work in books), then the biogeographic work on mimicry complexes and Pleistocene Refugia theory (a huge literature in entomology and botany relating the genetics stuff to geography, and summarized in many books) (70's onward), then the refining/reworking of these works ala' cladistics and vicariance biogeography (80's onward), a literature on co-evolution of plants and butterflies (70's onward), a literature following that on the chemical complexes themselves (80's onward), then a literature on insect behavior and sensory organs (70's onward but "hotter" recently), and more recently mimicry complexes and parapatric [and other models of] speciation (90's onward). We ignore this literature at our peril, at least in communicating with others, tho' this is NOT to say that new paradigms are also not interesting, scientifically valild re: their methods, etc. But, the rules have "changes": "good" science is not inductive anymore and Popperians insist it never was, only masked as such, etc.

But we have to be fair to the published literature, complicated as it is. Traditional views of mimicry ala natural selection and traditional biogeography have a strong history and have to be dealt with fairly and persuasively. This has been a difficult task within professional biology itself, so it becomes even more daunting (just as a note of caution) to persons writing in cross-disciplines. This is not to be critical of ANYONE; it is just a caution. We need to be aware that operating in cross-disciplines we are picking up, in a sense, on the "wake" of what's going on in biological science-- where things are quite rancorous of late with a tendency for one "school" to dismiss as "irrelevant" the work of other "schools" etc. So, there is room for all but we have to be careful (simply because if there is going to be a literature on Nabokov and science it has to appear as credible as possible to scientists of many "schools").

By the way, inadvertantly overlooking literature is not uncommon even among the best professionals. Recently in a peer-reviewed paper by none other then the greatly respected John Eliot (a true British EXPERT on Lycaenidae), John completely missed all the papers on Nabokov's blues (now can that happen?????) and stated, totally wrongly, that (1) there were very few blues in South America and (2) that they all come from the north! (and this is 2002!!!!!). He's without excuse because I sent him copies of all the recent scientific literature on Nabokov's blues. But it's easy to see how it happens; Eliot probably just did not read the stuff, stuck it in a file, forgot about it, and thus overlooked it. As a result his peer-reviewed "authoritative" paper is actually half-a-Century behind on its data concerning blues. I was flabbergasted when I read it; but, it's just an oversight. Eliot is very humble and kind; he'll be embarrassed I'm sure and admit he inadvertantly blundered (I just wrote him about it). He pointed out a huge blunder I made a few years ago on the blues genus Everes (I told him he was right, saying of myself, "if you are going to make a blunder you might as well make a big one")-- you'll remember that when Balint and I erected a new genus for one of Nabokov's Blues from Brazil (Eliokylacie-- I believe, named after Eliot himself) we put it in the wrong higher category BY A LONG SHOT. The way this happens is that there is SO MUCH published literature out there is it virtually impossible to keep up with it.

Thus, again, regarding Nabokov's, we also cannot ignore literature etc. if we want to be conversant with the general scientific community; we are going to have to pain-stakingly, and patiently, point out such things to each other. Part of the predicament, of course, is that Nabokov Forum is a place for more informal commentary; thus, sometimes things are said that are not exactly precise. But the above has concerned me about recent comments about Nabokov's science. I DON''T claim to be a know it all, but I did want to point out my concern.