FWD>RE>Phylogeny continued

[Warren Lamboy]

Mail*Link(r) SMTP               FWD>RE>Phylogeny continued

Richard McCourt wrote:

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Date: 28/07/1995 17:11
From: Richard McCourt
It sounds like Warren Lamboy is saying that any phenomenon that occurs
uniquely and didn't have witness cannot be studied scientifically, or at
least not with statistics.  But some folks calling themselves scientists
spend a lot of time working on cosmology and evaluating evidence for and
against various theories of the universe's origin.  I think they even use
statistics to evaluate their data and reconstruct history.  How is
phylogeny unrecoverable but other historical phenomena are?

Rick

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And Warren Lamboy responds:

It may sound like that, but that is not what I was saying.  I was referring to
phylogeny reconstruction in particular; I did not generalize to anything else.

I am unfamiliar with the theory and practice of cosmology, for example, so am
unqualified either to judge the results produced or, consequently, to answer
your final question.  Perhaps I would object as strongly to methods used in
cosmology as I do to those used in phylogeny reconstruction.