Re: Hierarchal vs Non-Hierarchal Interfaces to Biological Taxonomy

J M Davitt wrote:
> Neo wrote:
> Wanna know what's always bothered me about the way we describe
> hierarchies? We call the predecessor and successor parent and child and
> then throw in the autogenesis rule: "A child can have only one parent."
>
> There are very few children with only one parent... WTF do we use those
> terms?

For genealogical and code-dependency structures I once heard the term 'heterarchy' used. There is even a stub at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterarchy
I think it is nice intuitively.
Defining it will be another matter.

> I think the genealogy data are wonderful: they represent real-world
> relationships (Phunny, eh?) and not those artificial sort-of
> representative hierarchies that we so often see -- and so often don't
> work very well.

-- 
"The person who says it cannot be done
should not interrupt the person doing it."
Chinese Proverb.