[Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia

[John Grehan]

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Curtis Clark
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2011 4:08 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] RES: south-west Australia

On 6/24/2011 11:30 AM, John Grehan wrote:
>> panbiogeography is on a side track, no doubt due to Croizat's own
>> >  eccentricities.
> Curtis, since you are so big on objectivity and math how about backing

> up that claim with some corresponding evidence.

Because I'm talking about the culture of science, not the knowledge
itself, the fact that so few people do panbiogeography is evidence. As
to his eccentricities, I only have the word of people who knew others
who knew him, and literature accounts. Certainly all scientists are
eccentric in the broader sense, but I have read that Croizat angered
some who might have otherwise been his supporters (no, I'm really not
going to look up the specifics), which, if true, is seldom a productive
thing to do, no matter how right you are.

JRG In other worlds that assertion was just fluff.

>> >  I would venture that it will become mainstream only if its current

>> > practicioners reinvent it, or more likely when it is rediscovered 
>> > in  the future, much as genetics was.
> Yes - when biogeographers free themselves from the slavery to 
> imaginary centers of origin and dispersal.

David Hull (if I'm not mistaken) once wrote an article "Why Darwin won" 
(lack of Google results suggests that I may have the title wrong as
well). I heard him present the material back in the late 1970s. His
thesis was that Darwin's theory of evolution took hold, when so many
other similar theories didn't, because Darwin played by the rules of
science in Europe at that time. 

JRG: Of course that's all very well given that it succeeded (actually
his theory of natural selection did not start take hold until the
1930's)

It is unfortunate that ideas often live and die, not by their merits,
but by how they are presented. 
Nevertheless, it's true. Polemics alone, even when backed up by the
supposedly blinding light of truth, almost never carry the day, and
biogeographers will "free" themselves of the "slavery" when it seems to
be worthwhile to them in the context of their careers. Or as they said
years ago in information technology, "No one was ever fired for buying
IBM."

JRG: So you agree with me. 

--
--
Curtis Clark
Cal Poly Pomona


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