Bryson stresses that when it comes to life on Earth, the task of generating clear and adequate descriptions is even harder, partly because of the sheer volume of species and partly because of how inconsistent classification systems have been in the past. There is thus a pressing need for good, clear classifications of biological life to help science in this area progress. The volume of life’s species provides further evidence that scientific knowledge about current life on Earth is highly limited, and it still has a long way to go.