Real species and ideology

[John Grehan]

At 09:34 PM 4/21/2004 -0700, Curtis Clark wrote:

>That's a road best not taken. Something is "real" if scientists can study
>it from different angles and get consistent results. The philosophical
>issues are interesting in their own right (my degree does say *Ph*D, after
>all), but I don't see that they directly affect what we do as scientists.

It would seem to me that philosophical issues are what directly affect what
scientists do. The current discussion of species would seem to exemplify
that point.

If scientists can study the human origins question and come up with results
that are inconsistent between measures of DNA similarity and morphological
similarity. Does that make human origins 'unreal'?

John Grehan



>--
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Dr. John Grehan
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