[Taxacom] I guess that depends on what we mean by "believe", doesn't it?

[Frederick W Schueler]

Dick Jensen wrote:
> John Grehan wrote:
> 
> "What people believe is not science."
> 
> I guess that depends on what we mean by "believe", doesn't it?  I "believe" that our modern theory of evolution is a powerful explanatory device that is consistent with the evidence and is better than other attempts to explain that evidence (e.g., Intelligent Design).  Of course, some use the word "believe" as synonymous with "acceptance of something based on personal or emotional perspectives, rather than objectively determined evidence."  If the latter is what John means, then I agree - it's not science.  But, we must clarify our usage of words when we make absolute statements.
> 

* to turn this around, one can say that "science is the 
not-yet-falsified residue of the stories that scientists have believed 
to be worth studying." Or even "science is the not-yet-falsified residue 
of the stories that scientists have been able to find funding to study."

The basic scientific activity is somebody else testing the theory that 
you have failed to falsify. But if the "somebody else" is missing, your 
theory, however plausible, whether Orangutan/Human apomorphies, explicit 
paraphyly, or overall phenotypic similarity tied to ecological 
similarity, goes into an epistemological limbo from which it can be 
rescued only by convincing others to be interested in it.

I remember an episode in the 1970s when a senior ornithologist dumped on 
a junior ornithologist for publishing a paper about variation in tarsus 
lengths of wintering Savannah Sparrows. His only argument was that 
ecophenotypic assortment among migrants wasn't supposed to be part of 
ornithological science...

fred.
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