Oops. My previous message on this topic went out inadvertantly before
I had a chance to proofread it (someone walked into the office; I
intended to postpone the message, but hit the wrong key on autopilot
and mailed it instead). I hope the numerous typos and glitches are
obvious as such.

The last part of that message was about how a system of naming taxa
without assigning them to ranked categories (family, genus, species, etc)
would do away with the host of problems associated with our antiquated
(literally pre-evolutionary) Linnaean system. Binomials are only part of
the problem; the myriad comparative analyses published each year at the
"generic" "familial," etc. "levels" -- when such "levels" do not exist --
are another part; splitting and lumping of taxa are yet another artifact
of having categories; and there's even more. But don't hold your breath.
Moving to a saner system has been proposed, but people scream bloody murder
about breaking with tradition (kind of like DOS living on). Looks like
we'll be using 18th century classification and its attendant foibles well
into the new millenium. It's important to maintain a sense of humor.

David Wright
dwright at u.washington.edu