Category Archives: Genetics

by | October 20, 2010

How many species concepts are there?

[Note: This is a piece I wrote for Grrlscientist's blog at the Guardian, Punctuated Equilibrium. I post it here for purposes of record. Please make comments at Grrl's blog.] It’s an old question in biology: what is a species? Many … Continue reading →

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Filed under Epistemology, Evolution, Genetics, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Species and systematics, Species concept

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by | October 17, 2010

A link to a kill

I have finished my lecture for tomorrow early! So linkies!

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Filed under Academe, Australian stuff, Creationism and Intelligent Design, Epistemology, Evolution, General Science, Genetics, History, Humor, Internet filtering, Journalism, Links, Media, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Pop culture, Religion, Science, Social evolution, Systematics, Technology, trashcan categorial

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by | September 28, 2010

The Link in Red

Too many links! Here are some… @ Rationally Speaking: Eliezer Yudkowsky on Bayes and science: what? and Honest and Decent Humans Should Oppose This Pope [apropos of which, see Deaf victim of sex abuse is suing pope, and going public … Continue reading →

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Filed under Evolution, Genetics, History, Humor, Journalism, Media, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Sermon

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by | September 23, 2010

Linkballs

Been a while. Teaching. Sorry. Links:

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Filed under Biology, Creationism and Intelligent Design, Ecology and Biodiversity, General Science, Genetics, History, Links, Politics, Religion, Species concept

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by | August 30, 2010

A Chorus Link

I haven’t done one of these for a while. Chris Schoen discusses freedom of religion. So does Brandon. They’re being dicks to Russell Blackford. Pat Shipman has a hypothesis that humans connect with animals as a result of our symbolic … Continue reading →

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Filed under Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Journalism, Links, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

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by | August 10, 2010

A Nightmare on Link Street

Apparently the media has cottoned on to the fact that Christianity is in trouble in America, now that a writer of vampfic has abandoned it. In the spirit of being like the media (i.e., clueless), allow me to give you … Continue reading →

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Filed under Biology, Creationism and Intelligent Design, Ecology and Biodiversity, Epistemology, Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Evolution, Genetics, Links, Media, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Species and systematics, Species concept

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by | August 8, 2010

Sixteen links

BMC Biology has a piece and video interview on John Mattick, entitled “The evolution of gene regulation, the RNA universe, and the vexed questions of artefact and noise“. Mattick is one of those fringe dwellers in science, a contrarian who … Continue reading →

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Filed under Epistemology, Evolution, Genetics, Links, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

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by | May 13, 2010

Testing universal common ancestry

A long time ago, a young graduate student wandered into the festering cesspool of creationists and evolutionists known as talk.origins and offered to write a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions page) on whether or not macroevolution and common descent were supported … Continue reading →

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Filed under Creationism and Intelligent Design, Epistemology, Evolution, Genetics, Philosophy, Science

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by | April 13, 2010

Legal metaphysics of genes

The recent decision in the NY district court against the breast cancer gene patent held by Myriad has many interesting aspects, but one that was brought to my attention by John Lunstroth is that the court engaged in a metaphysical … Continue reading →

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Filed under Biology, Genetics, Metaphysics, Philosophy

by | March 31, 2010

Linkeries

Piece on the arbitrariness of “statistical significance” and the effect it has in medical research. Not terribly good argument that brain science doesn’t disprove God (or Darwin, I hope, but the headline is clearer than the essay). Even some conservatives … Continue reading →

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Filed under Evolution, Genetics, History, Philosophy, Science