correction to: Re: parsimony/biology

[Kirk Fitzhugh]

>>In my response to Curtis Clark, I inadvertently used the phrase
>>"ontological terms" when I should have said "ontogenetic terms." Too much
>>reading of philosophy :-)
>
>Wow, individual organism cannot be regarded as things? Not even
>particulars? So, I guess this means the statement, "Curtis Clark has two
>eyes," is entirely false. If one cannot refer to an individual as a
>non-universal, spatio-temporally constrained entity, i.e., a thing, then
>there is no way to characterize that thing by the properties instantiated
>by that "thing." There is no mandate that our reference to things,
>individuals, objects, etc., must be in ontological terms, much less as the
>compilation of subsidiary particles. True, anything can be a pattern. But
>do you really want to reduce cladograms to being nothing more than patterns
>of intersecting lines? Is it not more scientifically interesting to go well
>beyond mere "pattern" and attempt to causally understand what it is we
>actually observe in the world, which by the way, are the properties of
>individuals?