John Wilkins
evolvingthoughts
Posts by this author
February 21, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article discussing a study as to why there are so few conservative academics, in the light of the campaign by conservative activist David Horowitz to propose and "academic bill of rights". The answer? John Stuart Mill put it best:
What I stated was, that…
February 21, 2008
One of the more curious episodes in recent cultural history is the adoption, word for word, by Islamists particularly in Turkey of the American Christian fundamentalist antievolution schtick. Nobody knows more about this than Taner Edis, whose book An Illusion of Harmony: Science And Religion in…
February 20, 2008
In a recent paper on biological nomenclature in Zoologica Scripta, Michel Laurin makes the following comment about the stability of Linnean ranks:
However, taxa of the rank of family, genus or species are not more stable. ...
This sad situation should not surprise us because the ranks, on which…
February 20, 2008
From The Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series comes A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography edited by Aviezer Tucker. It looks fascinating, especially essay 36 on Darwin...
February 18, 2008
A new paper, unfortunately not yet available to nonsubscribers on PNAS's Early Edition, has done some remarkable work on the evolution of canoe designs, putting some meat onto cultural evolutionary models.
The paper is nicely reviewed by K. Kris Hirst here, however. And when we mere mortals can…
February 18, 2008
As I prepare my lectures for this semester (Australian universities start the academic year in late February, early March, apart from those poor sods who have summer semesters) I am moved by Moselio Schaechter's little essay In Defense of the Lecture to ponder what propaedeutic use lectures are.…
February 18, 2008
Back when Darwin was a student at Cambridge, he read, and almost memorised the Rev William Paley's Natural Theology, and thereafter remained impressed by the obvious adaptiveness of the parts of organisms and their interrelations. As is well known, he gave an explanation differently to Paley's…
February 17, 2008
In particular, see the final panel...
Cf. also here on Private Languages in philosophy
February 16, 2008
A real journalist reviews a media conference held for the new pro-ID film Expelled:
Freedom of expression is unseemly at an Expelled press conference. There was no give-and-take, no open marketplace of ideas, in fact, scarcely any questions at all. Ruloff and Stein batted one softball after…
February 14, 2008
Comment
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
Courtesy of Mrs Dorothy Parker
February 13, 2008
Have you ever noticed that there are occasionally periods in which things just work, particularly with computers?
I find that there is a confluence of coherence about every four years. I'm not sure if it's just because the vendors - the Evil Apple Empire, or Micro$oft, whoever - recognises that…
February 13, 2008
Biology does normativity all the time. There are things that are the "normal" type of state of a species, an organism, an ecosystem, and so on, and things that are abnormal. But the puzzling thing is that all philosophers know, since David Hume, that normativity doesn't develop out of facts. So…
February 12, 2008
Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was that Abp Rowan Williams did not…
February 9, 2008
So, it's Darwin Day tomorrow my time. So what? What's so great about Darwin?
I mean, Darwin did some very cool science, and often was remarkably perceptive about the nature of biology, but he's not the only one in his day. In fact, he was beaten by a great many people on various notions like the…
February 9, 2008
Since I'm feeling low, I thought I'd wallow in it for a bit.
A while back, Australian musicians were asked what they thought was the perfect song by an Australasian and they proposed "Into Temptation" by the adopted Australian Tim Neil Finn (he's a Kiwi) of Split Enz and Crowded House. It's a…
February 9, 2008
Some of you may recall I was immensely impressed by Laurie Pycroft, a 16 year old who started Pro-Test, which defended the use of animal models against the vicious and largely unthinking nastiness of animal "rights" protesters. Now Nick Anthis, at The Scientific Activist, is reporting that they…
February 9, 2008
Hat tip: Chris Ho-Stuart. What I want to know is, who is keeping tabs on my social life?
February 8, 2008
By Matt Ridley, in Time:
... by the end of this century, if not sooner, biotechnology may have reached the point where it can take just about any DNA recipe and read off a passable 3-D interpretation of the animal it would create.
So long as you also know the developmental machinery, the…
February 8, 2008
So, it seems that 44 is the median age of depression. Old news, or at least it is for me. Although for 44 to be the median age of depression for me, I'd have to live until my late 70s. Right now, after a week of working on a grant application and dealing with my son returning to school, I'm not a…
February 4, 2008
I am quite sure that this is how undergraduates in philosophy see the whole thing:
HT: Creative Synthesis
February 3, 2008
NASA is broadcasting "Across the Universe" from Let It Be to the North Star, Polaris. All well and good until the aliens arrive and we find out they're Stones fans...
February 3, 2008
Martin Rundkvist, a Swede, has chastised the American body politick for being Right Wing and Even More Right Wing; that is, for lacking a Left in European terms. The American Body Politick, in the person of Chad Orzel, has hit back. Instead of saying that America lacks a Left, says he, say that…
February 2, 2008
Here's a comment that represents a widely held misconception about the evolution of religion:
Whenever there is an discussion about religions and changes in religions someone always pulls out the argument that religions evolve. I am very sorry but I believe that applying the concept of evolution…
February 2, 2008
As well as the Basic Concepts list, I occasionally get sent some links that are in my mind too advanced to be basics, but too good not to mention. So I will do with them what I have done with the Basics. Send me some links...
Recent additions
Coturnix's Biological Clock tutorials, 1-16, and a…
February 1, 2008
A rather cute article at the Catholic News Service says this:
In commentaries, papal speeches, scientific conferences and philosophical exchanges, the Vatican has been focusing more and more on the relationship between God and evolution.
From the outside, this may seem a reaction to the U.S.…
February 1, 2008
Readers will know that I got very angry about the Haneef Affair, in which a muslim Indian doctor was accused of being a terrorist and deported by the improper abuse of power by the minister for immigration of the previous government [here, here, here, here, here and here].
Now his lawyer has…
January 30, 2008
Anyone else read this and immediately think of Eric Burdon singing "sky pilot"?