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Published online 19 April 2000 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news000420-8
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Down with species
A fierce battle is raging in the usually sedate field of taxonomy -- the formal naming and classification of living things. Even the very notion of 'species' is up for grabs, reports Henry Gee.
A contradiction lurks at the heart of modern biology, which few as yet seem willing to confront. Those that do risk the ire of most of their colleagues because two and a half centuries of biological tradition are at stake.
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