Evolving Thoughts

A philosopher faces her own mortality

November 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Havi Carel has a disease that is life shortening, and describes her experiences in this poignant essay in the Independent. She is a philosopher who has written on death, before her diagnosis.

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Travel Diary 13: Berkeley talk

November 6, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Well, yet again I have utterly utterly failed to embarrass my university by making an idiot of myself in public. In short, the talk (on the Essentialism Myth) to the Vertebrate Zoology crowd at Berkeley went very well I am told. I believe them because instead of sending me on my way surreptitiously, they bought me beer. Lunch with Chuck Crumly of UC Press, Brent Mishler of the Herbarium, and mein host Kevin Padian was lovely, if a little tipsy.

I recognised some faces in the crowd, once I had got the computer working. Nick Matzke, once of NCSE and now a doctoral student, was there.

Tonight I will take it easy, and tomorrow I meet a crew from talk.origins for pizza and a ferry ride. Then Sunday back home, at last!

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Administrative · Evolution · History · Philosophy · Science · Species and systematics · Species concept · Systematics

Lynch on the misuse of history by creationists

November 6, 2009 · 1 Comment

John Lynch bells the cat in the History of Science Society Newsletter, and you can read it here. He points out the fundamental dishonesty of ID-”historians” who try to smear evolutionary biology by linking it with Hitler. For some inexplicable reason he fails to link this to a history of the species concept.

→ 1 CommentCategories: Creationism and Intelligent Design · History

“More than a theory” Lyrics

November 6, 2009 · 2 Comments

After I made a bad pun on the alt.fan.pratchett Usenet group, SteveD came up with this:

More than a theory (to the tune of Boston’s “More than a feeling”)

I woke up this morning and the sun still shone
Bath of neutrinos to start my day
The spectrum’s light was a familiar song
Now analysed, and the maths all say

It’s more than a theory (more than a theory)
When the data lines up that perfect way (more than a theory)
I begin dreaming (more than a theory)
Of a world where pure science holds sway

I want my science world ruling the day

By noon I wandered through Nature’s wilds
So many lifeforms to marvel at
All a wond’rous now as when a child
This jackpot we’ve won, just observing that -

It’s more than a theory (more than a theory)
When the data lines up that perfect way (more than a theory)
I begin dreaming (more than a theory)
Of a world where pure science holds sway

I want my science world ruling the day

When I’ve retired and gotten old
My life wasn’t wasted, regret no day
My dream still unfurls, and ever grows
I built my part, and they’ll always say

It’s more than a theory (more than a theory)
When the data lines up that perfect way (more than a theory)
I begin dreaming (more than a theory)
Of a world where pure science holds sway

I’ll have my science world ruling the day

To which I can only say “bravo!”

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Travel Diary 12: Berkeley

November 5, 2009 · 2 Comments

Today I had the pleasure of meeting my editor, Chuck Crumly, of University of California Press, who noted that my book is now an e-book. And cheaper than the printed version, too.

Chuck, to no surprise from me, is an erudite and enthusiastic science fan, and Yet Another Nice Guy, as I seem fated to find everywhere I go.

Tonight I’m dropping by NCSE to say hi.

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Administrative · Book · Species concept

Sokal on philosophers of science

November 5, 2009 · 6 Comments

Julian Baggani has an interview up at The Philosophers’ Magazine with Alan Sokal, famous for the hoax that bears his name. In it Sokal says things about philosophy of science that he seems to think are dismissive, but which I would say are themselves philosophy of science claims that can be defended.

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Ray Comfort, plagiarist

November 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Remember Ray Comfort’s version of the Origin? Well it seems that while the final version is not missing chapters, the introduction is missing something else. Originality. AIGBusted has found that he has plagiarised at least some of it. Colour me unsurprised.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Creationism and Intelligent Design

Notre Dame conference – the washup

November 3, 2009 · 11 Comments

It’s been a great conference. Simon Conway Morris was fun (but wrong! It’s OK, he says I am too). Peter Bowler’s talk on “what-if history” – what if Darwin had drowned on the Beagle? was actually interesting and raised some nice points about both the nature of the theory of evolution that would have resulted if Darwin had not been there, a kind of early evo-devo, and also whether eugenics and social “Darwinism” would have developed anyway (almost certainly yes, as the ideas were around long before Darwin, although they may not have had such strong hereditarian tendencies; Weikart is wrong on everything he says).

Jean Gayon was excellent on the prospects for Darwinian thought*, and I really liked most of the other speakers too. When an ID proponent stood up and berated the speakers for dismissing and deriding ID, Francisco Ayala gave the best response: they are just plain embarrassing to have around. Bernard Wood went further: it’s animal cruelty, like shooting fish in a barrel. Phil Sloan, one of the organisers, was more measured – this is a forward looking conference on science and religion, not backward looking. I think they call that a backward compliment.

One thing that has struck me is that nobody ever suggested that evolution, in particular Darwinian evolution, was false or mistaken. Given that this is a Catholic event jointly organised as part of the Pontifical Council for Culture, this is significant. There is not the slightest hint of creationism or ID among these people. I take this as a sign that if either have any purchase in Catholic culture, it is in contradiction to Catholic doctrine and authority.

* I disagree with him that the “web of life” will replace the “tree of life” as if you can identify lateral transfer, you must be able to identify the taxa that transfer is later with respect to, and if everything is a web, then you have a tokogenetic relationship, not a taxonomic one.

Tomorrow I fly to San Francisco and then train to Berkeley. I meet up with systematists at Berkeley and try to sell the book, and on Saturday with my internet friends (I have more of them in America than friends in Australia, which is sad, in one way, except when I come to America). Pizza is likely at both events. Then home on Sunday, arriving Tuesday Australian time, before I fly to Queensland for a job interview. By the next weekend I may be dead.

→ 11 CommentsCategories: Evolution · General Science · History · Metaphysics · Philosophy · Religion · Science · Systematics

Reflections on theology

November 3, 2009 · 7 Comments

Readers may not know that I did a couple of years of theology at an Anglican theological college, Ridley College, in Melbourne before I embarked upon my philosophical and historical studies. I was quite good at it, and only my lack of actual, you know, faith interrupted what was a promising career.

So it should come as no surprise to me how boring theology actually is, although I had forgotten. I am listening to someone weave word salad (sorry, mixed metaphor. Suffice it to say one could eat this whole cloth) on Teilhard de Chardin as “theodrama”.

I don’t mind theists doing this, of course, but it is rather amusing to see how theology simply lacks either the evidence or the intellectual resources to deal with science, and in particular evolution, which is why they keep returning to the foolishness that was Teilhard. I may pass out before this talk is finished.

On a brighter note, Paul Griffiths’ talk last night was regarded by many as a shining light of clarity of thought amidst the word salad.

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Travel Diary 11: Notre Dame

November 3, 2009 · 14 Comments

This conference is turning out to be interesting, in a kind of weird way. I am very much the agnostic in the Catholic lion’s den, but so far the lions haven’t so much as looked my way hungrily. I did have an interesting discussion tonight with Simon Conway Morris, and Paul Griffiths’ and my talk (his really; I just coasted along as ghost author) went over very well indeed, in which we (he) argued that the evolutionary debunking argument that works for religion and morality fails for cases in which evolution tracks fitness by tracking truth (i.e., in cases where our Umwelt is ecological).

I give my solo talk on evolutionary naturalism of religion tomorrow.

One other cool event was that Ken Miller showed a number of theist and atheist advocates of evolution on a slide (let them all talk, he said), and one of them was PZ Miscible. I nearly stood up and shouted “I know him!”.

→ 14 CommentsCategories: Creationism and Intelligent Design · Evolution · History · Logic and philosophy · Philosophy · Religion · Science