> maybe shouldn't be so fast in throwing it away because it doesn't match something I think this touches on a big difference between science and software. In

> maybe shouldn't be so fast in throwing it away because it doesn't match something I think this touches on a big difference between science and software. In science, models are not "thrown away" because there is no need to throw them away. Multiple models can exist side-by-side, whereas it seems to me that this is not the case in software. For example, Newtonian mechanics were great for a really long time. Then relativity came along and was found to be superior to Newtonian mechanics in some situations. Does that mean that we threw out Newtonian mechanics? No! It's still a useful model, regardless of the fact that it's wrong in some cases. The point I'm making is that biology uses "single inheritance" not because it's right, but because it's useful in some cases. In other cases, where it breaks down, you will be forced to use a different model.