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

[John Grehan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Frederick W Schueler

> The basic scientific activity is somebody else testing the theory that
> you have failed to falsify. 

Nice point

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.

And whether they are interested or not will depend on all sorts of
factors about what they believe or not in the first place. That part of
scientific activity is of itself, not science, in my opinion (which is
no doubt not scientific).

John Grehan
> 
> 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.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>              Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
>            Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
>         RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
>      on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
>        (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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