Category Archives: Systematics
Carnival of Evolution 47: All the Evolution News that’s Fit to Blog
Welcome to the 47th edition of the Carnival of Evolution. We have had our science reporters out in force hunting down the best of the blogosphere on evolution and related subjects, and here they are for your delectation and delight … Continue reading
Bayes, evolutionary clocks, and biogeography
I just received a review by Gareth Nelson of Michael Heads’ book Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics (publishers’ site). I should have blogged this before, since I got a copy, being on the editorial board for this series (the same one … Continue reading
Are humans, apes, monkeys, primates, or hominoids?
I suspect the correct literary answer is that we are Yahoos, but here I want to do what I would ordinarily never dare do: disagree with John Hawks. John takes Jerry Coyne to task for calling humans “apes”: Humans are hominoids. … Continue reading
Notes on Novelty 4: Examples – the beetle’s horns and the turtle’s shell
Notes on Novelty series: 1. Introduction 2. Historical considerations – before and after evolution 3: The meaning of evolutionary novelty 4: Examples – the beetle’s horns and the turtle’s shell 5: Evolutionary radiations and individuation 6: Levels of description 7: Surprise! 8: Conclusion – Post evo-devo … Continue reading
Filed under Evolution, Natural Classification, Philosophy, Science, Species and systematics, Systematics
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 1: Introduction
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power This is an extended meditation upon the recent film Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011). There may be spoilers (first and … Continue reading
The taxonomy of disease
A letter in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery has argued that it is time to reform the taxonomy of disease. The authors are Ismail Kola, head of a pharmaceutics company, and Sir John Bell, Regius Professor at Oxford. The taxonomy of … Continue reading
Filed under Biology, General Science, Natural Classification, Systematics
Counting species
Suppose a scholar of toys wanted to count the number of kinds of toys in the world. Since this information is not generally recorded, the scholar might look at the ways toys are used, the sales figures, or the designs … Continue reading
