cladism's greatest weakness

[Tom DiBenedetto]

Richard Zander wrote:

>Realism, even the
>rational realism you describe, is, however, like teleology in explaining
>evolutionary events. It is so easy to say something like: the taxon evolved
>such and such a character to better survive - rather than describe a natural
>selection scenario.

Sorry, but for the life of me I dont see the connection between the
rationality that I described and teleology.

>Well, consider: God is in Heaven, the Devil is in Hell,
>and everything else is "out there." The first two statements are not
>appropriate subjects for scientific analysis or synthesis, so why is the
>third?

Heaven and hell are empirically inaccessable. The real world out there
is something we can percieve, formulate ideas and hypotheses about, and
return to test those hypotheses; i.e. we can do science with it.

>Where is "out there"?

On the other side of your pia mater.

>>  We develop conceptual tools to
>> describe and deal with the "things out there".
>
>What do you mean "we"? Some of us deal with what we remember of the past,
>with what we expect in the future, and with what we find about us in the
>here and now. This results in valuable guidelines for action and new
>expectation, a process which I think does not require an "out there" to work
>well.

The "we" I refer to is those of us who try to do science.

>Glad to hear from you again, Tom.

Nice to hear from you too Richard. I read your paper. I must admit
that I think it a bit bad form to plug for support of your research
program at the expense of other scientists. Why not go after redundant
bombers or milk price supports?