hypothetical construct

[Thomas Schlemmermeyer]

Sorry, here I have to give up.=20
Not very familiar with the extremely difficult english language, I could no=
t
understand the words "reifies" and "reification".

As homology and synapomorphy are central concepts in systematics I am
seriously interested in understanding your thoughts.

Could you put them in other terms?

Thank you very much,     Thomas


On Mon, 8 Dec 1997, sylvia hope wrote:

>           A couple of people objected rightly to my distinguishing
>           hypothesis from hypothetical contruct.  The point I meant to
>           make is that the term the term "synapomorphy" reifies the
>           idea of homology.  It makes a relationship of homology seem
>           to be a real, solid thing, whereas it is really only an idea
>           about the correspondence among organisms - there is no real
>           entity there.  Reification is common in an operational
>           approach.  It can lead via subtle suggestive power to too
>           much confidence in a finding.
>=20
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