"*The days of the Mexican stand off between so called 'lumpers and splitters' is effectively soon to be at an end with these new tools and allowing an inarguable case, more often than not, to be made one way or another.*" Who would make the "inarguable case"? A consensus or a central authority? The arbiter is the scientific community, which derives much of its strength from the heterodox nature of its members. Friction between the latter can be more productive than agreement. I don't think the problem of ranking taxa, ultimately a subjective necessity, can be resolved in a landscape of new information and evolving interpretations. Two botanists with a similar, comprehensive understanding of a group may forward different and equally valid views on the organization of taxa into a formal classification. Such differences provide a crucial forum for the improvement of phylogenies and taxonomy. Dylan