Nhu wrote, *"Instead of taking 20 years to become an expert at a genus, someone who is trained to sequence DNA in one week can identify all of the plants. Of course, it initially took the expert to put the correct name on the **sequence. So that is a major reason to continue training taxonomists.*" This highlights another key divergence in modern biology, the difference between knowing one's plants and knowing one's sequences. Organismal biology (knowing an organism by its appearance, ecology, range, variation, behavior, etc.) is often viewed as archaic today because it is felt to be less precise or informative than what can be derived from genes. Funding for research follows (or leads) this pattern. Yet lab work does not prepare a scientist for the riches of field work. The popular impression seems to be that DNA work replaces the need to be familiar with plants and animals directly but this is false. Note that in Nhu's example the molecular scientist remains reliant on previous work by classically trained taxonomists for his results to have any practical application in classification. Identifying a species, which requires more than sequencing alone, is different than knowing that species in any meaningful way. Dylan