Re: Hanson 2006, Mortimer, Baeker response

[Phil Bigelow <bigelowp@juno.com>]

No Way <alincodj2k@yahoo.com> writes:


<<<This kind of discussion is the main reason most people
go into the experimental sciences rather than the descriptive.>>>


I can relate.  I carry a rock hammer and a Brunton (with a recent
addition of a GPS unit -- "I gots ta stay current.  I just gots ta!").

But Subjectivism may be the wave of the future, even for geology.  I have
seriously considered becoming a psychic geologist.  My business card will
read "Rock Whisperer".



<<<Cladistics may be intellectually compelling but the
inherently subjective aspects involved in character
selection, etc, does more to obfuscate true relationships
than to clarify them.>>>



Cladistics does a good job of forcing researchers to stay current. 
However, it is by no means the inevitable pathway to The Truth.  Yet,
this esoteric path forces researchers to ask more questions.  In that
way, cladistics is an important part of science.  It sure beats the heck
out of the stagnant, paraphyletic/polyphyletic world of Linnaean
classification.

IMHO, studying cladistics is a lot like studying the issue of death. 
Both topics are extremely important subjects and both of them relate to
the numerous questions that we ask about "life" and "existence".  But it
is probably best not to obsess about either subject too much.

Too much Discussion on the Minutia of Esoteric Pedantics (DMEP) can cause
even a bored Bishop to kick a hole in a stained glass window.

And nobody needs more frustrated Bishops in this world.  Even a cladist
should spend at least some time each year out in the fresh air with a
rock hammer and a brush in his/her hand.

<pb>
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