Disconfirmation, confirmation versus

Computers, Hennig s ideas and use of, 107 Confirmation, disconfirmation versus, 83 Congruence test, 115 Continental drift, 227 Crossoptei ians, 163 Crossopterygii, 159, 160 Crustacean Rehbachiella, 120 Cycloneuralia, 112 Cyclostomata, 167... 

The central tenets of the falsificationist philosophy of Karl R. Popper are reviewed in detail, and the way they do or do not apply to systematics and phylogeny reconstruction is analyzed. Cladistic analysis, cast in either maximum parsimony or in maximum likelihood approaches, is not compatible with Popperian falsificationism. The main reasons are the absence of a deductive link between a hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships and character distribution on a tree, which translates into the absence of the basic asymmetry of falsification versus verification. This sets Popper s philosophy of science apart from inductive systems. In cladistic analysis, falsification (disconfirmation) is symmetrical to verification (confirmation), which reveals an inductive and hence probabilistic background. The basic problem of systematics as an empirical science resides in character conceptualization and its critical evaluation. 

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