Re: paleonet Homo sapiens / H. erectus introgression

[John F Bratton <jbratton@xxxxxxxx>]

Couldn't resist....

Rare Albino Crow Draws Crowds
http://www.nbc30.com/news/2842148/detail.html

Racial crow joke:
Q: What is an albino crow called?
A: Caw-casian



                                                                       
                      "Nikolaus                                        
                      Malchus"                 To:       paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
                      <n.malchus@gmx.ne        cc:                     
                      t>                       Subject:  Re: paleonet Homo sapiens / H. erectus introgression
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                      paleonet-owner@nh                                
                      m.ac.uk                                          
                                                                       
                                                                       
                      04/01/2005 10:59                                 
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                      Please respond to                                
                      paleonet                                         
                                                                       




> and absence of evidence is not
> evidence of absence.
> K.Burton

Of course not.
A nice conundrum, Popper gave an answer to. Perhaps it is not the only
possible one.
The problem is that at least in Paleontology and many other sciences we
will
never be able to provide 100% evidence of absence (except, perhaps, for
morphological characters, but even there is much space for discussion), an
inherent problem of inductive logic.
But, we can develop a hypothesis using "absence of evidence", e.g. the well
known "All ravens are black", i.e. other-coloured ravens never lived, don't
live today and will never live (a universal statement).
Such hypotheses can be tested at least potentially (indispensible for a
scientific hypothesis) by showing that it is false (if a non-black raven
shows up).

K.R. Popper, The logic of scientific discovery, 1992, Routledge (1st
published 1959 by Hutchinson Education).

Cheers,

Niko

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