blipey
Posts: 2061
Joined: June 2006
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Alright. Revisiting (hopefully for the last time) the topic of nested hierarchies with Joe Gallien, I have come to a severe Whaaaa????? moment.
Joe cites the following site as a definition of nested hierarchy: http://www.isss.org/hierarchy.htm
I quote the relevant passage:
| Quote | | Nested and non-nested hierarchies: nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. For example, an army consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. Thus an army is a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, the general at the top of a military command does not consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army. |
In a response to an email inquiry I made of him, Professor Allen confirms that a paternal family tree is not a nested hierarchy.
However, from the bold passage above, I think this is false. A family consists of a collection of people and is made up of them. Therefore a family can be organized as a nested hierarchy just as an army can be (at least in the case of paternal family trees where each set can only be contained in one immediate superset).
I fail to see the difference between Professor Allen's army and a family (grouped by paternity). Am I blind?
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But I get the trick question- there isn't any such thing as one molecule of water. -JoeG
And scientists rarely test theories. -Gary Gaulin
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