multiple classification systems

[John Trueman]

Re Barbara Ertter's example:
>the historical fact of an early Pope declaring that capybara are "fish" for
>the purpose of Friday abstinence from meat. This seems nonsensical to us ...
>

... and merely as an aside:
To a biologist this should not seem nonsensical at all.  What is a human if
not a scaleless, bipedal, terrestrial fish?

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John Trueman
Bioinformatics Unit
Research School of Biological Sciences
Australian National University        -------------------------------
Canberra, ACT 0200,  AUSTRALIA       | Progress is made when a timid |
                                     | hypothesis is rejected or a   |
                                     | bold one is not.              |
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-----------------------------------
Parsimony is nowhere inconsistent, |
its the alignment which is wrong!  |
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