Humans and orangutans

[Kosmas Theodorides]

Dear John,

As a molecular geneticist, with an interest in history and philosophy of
science, I can assure you that the last thing I'd ever say is that any
approach (even molecular genetics) has the last word on anything. It is a
very powerful tool but it says little outside the organismic framework. I
am not sure I agree with you on the specifics of the primate issue, but I
most definitely welcome the fact that there are people dedicated  in
examining alternative explanations to the phenomena. You, and all other
colleagues, would do us a great favor if you could please keep up the
morphological work, not least to provide  alternative hypotheses to test.

Science (the modern form of what was called  Natural Philosophy in ancient
times) was reborn in the late Middle ages in monasteries where people were
naturally inclined to believe one explanation, one book and one leader. It
has left us that legacy of belief in the form of paradigms. Since for all
those centuries we've had enough paradigmatic leaders, and a great
graveyard of theories and methods that were supposed to have the last word
on everything, I think it is time for pluralism. Both from personal
experience and as a philosophical stance, no good science is science
fiction. I have being doing this long enough to remember many molecular
white elephants.

Above all, it is through collaboration, synthesis and synergy rather than
some kind of takeover by a brand-new paradigm that science has achieved the
most. Losing the morphological/organismal side for any sort of
reductionistic idealism would make us all poorer. Don't give up.

Kosmas Th.




At 14:31 6/17/2003 -0400, John Grehan wrote:
>Just an update on the orangutan-human front. I have heard from one
>molecular geneticist informing me that it has been scientifically proven
>that chimpanzees are human's closest living relatives and that it is highly
>irresponsible for me to convey to the public information which is known to
>be incorrect and that I will look like a laughing-stock among my peers.
>
>Be that as it may, this geneticist raises the same point I have mentioned
>earlier. If only molecular genetics scientifically proves phylogeny then
>all morphological contributions to phylogeny are rendered science fiction.
>All morphological studies, including those of fossil taxa, are unreliable
>to the point that they should no longer be funded. This seems to be the
>inevitable conclusion one would reach if molecular phylogeny were the only
>reliable way to reconstruct phylogeny and have automatic precedence over
>morphology. This is the view taken by most primate systematists working
>with human origins - even by those who study morphology, and including
>those who study fossil hominid taxa!
>
>Are there any morphological systematists on this list who view molecular
>genetics as the last word on reconstructing phylogeny? (i.e. view their own
>morphological work as phylogenetically uninformative).
>
>John Grehan
>
>Dr. John Grehan
>Director of Science and Collections
>Buffalo Museum of Science
>1020 Humboldt Parkway
>Buffalo, New York 14211-1293
>Voice 716-896-5200 x372
>Fax 716-897-6723
>jgrehan at sciencebuff.org
>http://www.sciencebuff.org/biogeography/Panbiogeography/Panbiogeography-Gate.htm
>http://www.sciencebuff.org/HepialidaeGate.htm

********************************
Kosmas Theodorides

Department of Entomology,
The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road,
London, SW7 5BD,

and

Imperial College,
Department of Biological Sciences,
Silwood Park, Ascot,
Berks SL5 7PY, UK

phone +44 (0)207 942 5609/5016
fax +44 (0)207 942 5229

kost at nhm.ac.uk
k.theodorides at ic.ac.uk

Everything flows and nothing remains the same. Heraclitus