Category Archives: Philosophy
Evolution quotes: Theories are not the whole of science
I opened Structure of Scientific Theories asserting that the “most central or important” problem in philosophy of science is “the nature and structure of theories . . . . For theories are the vehicle of scientific knowledge and one way … Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy, Quotes, Science, Theories
Empirical Perspectives
Jim Goetz, frequent commenter here, has started up what looks to be a physics and science blog at Empirical Perspectives. Go visit and make rude comments.
Filed under Administrative, General Science, Science
Why eat meat?
A while back, the New York Times held a blog competition on justifications for eating meat, in 600 words or less. I submitted mine, but I bet it didn’t get far up the selection tree, as the winner is effectively … Continue reading
Filed under Ethics and Moral Philosophy, Evolution, Philosophy
Analytic thinking, religion and science – the rhetoric and the psychology
Over the past few decades there has been an increasingly large literature on styles of thinking and cognitive biases (to which I am grateful to Jocelyn Stoller, a reader of this blog, for introducing me) in psychology, culminating in the marvellous … Continue reading
Filed under Cognition, Epistemology, Evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Social evolution
Community, unbelief, and the rise of secularism
One of the things that losing full use of a limb causes, is that everything takes four times as long as it used to. So I haven’t blogged due to my being very busy, tired, or both. Sorry. I promised … Continue reading
Filed under Creationism and Intelligent Design, General Science, Philosophy, Rant, Religion
Update
I spent the weekend going to the Global Atheist Conspiracy Convention, courtesy of PZ Myers, the organisers, and Neil Thomason who drove me. I will write some extended reflections on it over the next few days, but I have a … Continue reading
Filed under Philosophy
Evolution Quotes: Twain on inference about the past
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and “let on” to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur … Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, History, Philosophy, Quotes, Science
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
