Category Archives: Species concept
A busy fortnight
So, I have been rather active for the last fortnight (that’s two weeks for Americans). I visited Canberra to work on a species concept paper with a colleague, Brent Mishler. I attended a philosophy of biology workshop in Bundanoon, a … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative, Philosophy, Species concept
Competition winners
In case people did not notice my announcement in the comments of that post, the winners of a signed copy of my species history book are: Cameron Peters Doug G Elais Jackson Jesse Schaefer Lorax sbh Send me an email with … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative, Species concept
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 4: Predicting traits
Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Species have typical traits, anatomically. There is, however, a bit of a myth that before Darwin people thought species had essences which were … Continue reading
Ecological speciation
A new paper in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology (link below) assesses the possibility of speciation by ecological differentiation in conjunction with geographical isolation. The interesting thing here is that it takes two views previously considered as antagonists and combines … Continue reading
Huxley on species
I bought a fine copy of the Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley in 3 volumes. On page 343f of volume I I find his thoughts on speciation, addressed to the Rev. Charles Kingsley (author of the Water Babies) … Continue reading
Filed under Evolution, History, Natural Classification, Species concept
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
