If astronomers faced the biologists' dilemma 

Biologists tell us that our planet is currently undergoing the most rapid of the five or six great species extinction events in its history. The extinction results from the recent emergence of the super species Homo sapiens, extraordinarily capable of promoting its own survival above, and at the cost of, all other species.

Therefore a significant percentage of earth's species are disappearing each year. Biologists wishing to learn from the great diversity of species must race against time, since species are disappearing much faster than they can be discovered and catalogued.

It is as if an astronomer attempting to train her telescope upon a known celestial object frequently found nothing there, as the stars steadily winked out and disappeared, one by one, from the skies.

Rob Weinberg, 8/17/99