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> Rich, you've got my vote on that one! (at least in my more bleary-eyed 
> moments!) In pathology, we'll sometimes refer to collegues as being 
> either "lumpers" or "splitters". Those that prefer to look at the 
> overall, global disease process (they try to lump variants of tumors 
> under broader catagories) and those that wish to take things apart, piece 
> by piece like an old watch (they like to find sub-catagories to 
> sub-catagories to sub-catagories...). (PS:med students that have to 
> memorize lists hate these people for obvious reasons)

In my field (fish systematics/taxonomy) we have lumpers and splitters 
also - lumpers want to put a wide variety of critters under the same 
name, and splitters want to create zillions of new names for everything.  
Simlilar concept.

> In my *brief* studies on DCS, I'm beginning to wonder if predicting (and 
> therefore avoiding) it is like predicting the weather. There are so many 
> individual diver and environmental variables to track, that interact with 
> each other, that the *best* you'll ever do is a decent first order 
> approximation. With all the high tech equipment and our science of 
> meteorology, we still end up just opening a window and looking outside ;-)


Exactly! In mathematics it's called Chaos  - there are so many interactig 
factors that a tiny deviance in one variable can lead to a profound 
difference in ultimate manifestations.

Aloha,
Rich

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