BIOLOGICAL TAXONOMY, IMPACT FACTOR AND CURRICULAR EVALUATION FOR THE 21ST-CENTURY

There is a widespread concern in almost every country trying to make m ore efficient their scientific development along international standar ds. Among other things, this has promoted the USE of metric tools to s peed up the academic evaluations of our scientists. However some gener al indicators that supposedly link academic performance with either jo urnal's impact factor or number of cites that each publication receive s, in spite of their apparent simplicity and popularity, are not objec tively related with the publications or journal's quality. These tools as well as some other indicators and critiques are reviewed and an in vitation is made to look for a better set of alternatives that should be as robust as Science itself Because of its importance in our curren t Biodiversity crisis, taxonomy is particularly emphasized and some in dications are provided in the field of taxonomy of polychaetes. Some c omments regarding the Mexican System of Researchers are also included.