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Chris Brochu in "Cladistics (was Sci. Am - present) 26/27 Feb 98 wrote:
> in which Mononykus, hesperornis, People don’t prime a cladistic analysis which will confuse their
flightlessness as a single event because they *know* they were multiple! People
never publish the first thing that came out of the computer, especially if they
know it’s wrong. Cladograms are always screened for obvious errors
pre-submission (with extants), or impossible to prove (for extincts). John R. Hutchinson in "On Science [phew, long]" on 27/28 Feb 98 said: > 2) On common sense: I'd hate to live in a world where scientists
proceeded We need both common sense, and methodology of course - methodology is comparable to following rules, in general - "deduction", and common sense is comparable to creating, changing or temporarily bending rules - "induction". Often, patterns of behaviour thrown up by common sense become enshrined into methodology. Luckily, we can’t avoid having both: all primates (and . . .) have some sort of common sense; all human cultures have some sort of methodology - mythology, science or religion; it started sometime before the first placing of food in graves, and is the normal state for humans. Science and religion are the same from a distance. Have you ever thought how strange it is that our brains seem well adapted to run science, but it’s only been around for the last few hundred/thousand or so years? There doesn’t seem to have been much change in the hardware in that time. (Actually I think our brains have shrunk slightly since the invention of science). And maybe "science" predates Karl Popper? I think that makes him the latest fashion . . . unless someone is willing to announce "the philosophy of science stops here." When people say we need to use common sense, they often mean the rules are not quite right. They’re not suggesting we have to throw all rules out the window forever; we couldn’t, anyway. [Shameless tangent: "Conventional christianity" seems to have some sort of survival benefit compared to atheism. In times of great hardship the atheists tend to die before the christians. And the men before the women. That shows their relative positions in God’s affections - He’s obviously keener to be with the atheists and men!] > Iconoclasm has its merits, but it's a silly approach to adopt by Science is a process of change. Some ruts have high walls. We can’t keep flogging the people that old "Ground-up" theory forever! There’s another theory beyond that to get past before we get to the truth, and we’re behind schedule! (Nothing presumptuous in that I hope.) * * * I realise I’ve said more than enough on cladistics so I won’t make further comments on it. My final position is that I reserve the right to say I just don’t believe any particular cladogram, and I too would rather be right for the "wrong" reasons on bird evo.! John V Jackson jjackson@interalpha.co.uk "Any idiot who really wants to can write a computer program" John Maynard-Smith |