Tag Archives: History
Quote: Eddington’s two tables
Arthur Stanley Eddington was an Englishman, a physicist, a pacifist and a clever writer: I have settled down to the task of writing these lectures and have drawn up my chairs to my two tables. Two tables! Yes; there are … Continue reading
Filed under General Science, History, Philosophy, Quotes
Hume’s birthday
So you may have noticed, David Hume turns 300 today. I reckon he looks a lot younger than that, almost modern. There’s an interesting discussion on the History of Philosophy of Science list about whether Hume is the greatest English … Continue reading
Filed under Epistemology, History, Philosophy
Are you a HPS scholar?
If so I invite you to join our group blog Whewell’s Ghost, even if you already blog. You can either write for WG directly or repost some or all of your blog’s posts with alink back to your home blog, … Continue reading
Filed under Administrative, History, Philosophy, Science
Pope on evolution: more of the same teleological thinking
Recently, the Pope did what religious leaders appear increasingly inclined to do on Easter: bash science: Benedict emphasised the Biblical account of creation in his Easter Vigil homily, saying it was wrong to think at some point “in some tiny … Continue reading
Filed under Creationism and Intelligent Design, Evolution, History, Philosophy, Religion, Science
Evolution quote: Sirks and Zirkle
At this point it might be well to insert a fact that has generally been overlooked by the historians of biology. The pre-evolutionary concept of species is generally given as a universally accepted view that species were constant and true … Continue reading
Filed under Biology, Evolution, History, Philosophy, Quotes, Species and systematics, Species concept
Turtles all the way down
There is a story, often told about the philosopher William James: One day when the philosopher William James, who had a liking for scientific popularization, had just finished explaining in a small American town how the earth revolved around the … Continue reading
Filed under History, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Sermon, Social evolution
Somehow, I got minions/The first biological species concept revisited
It’s late in Real Time so I can only do a brief one now… I made the mistake of noting on Twitter that I lacked minions after PZ accused me of hating his. Of course I don’t hate them. It’s … Continue reading
Filed under History, Humor, Species concept
Darwin Day: Enough already
I love studying about Darwin and his life and times. I have read enormous amounts, and taught Darwinian history. I’m teaching it again this semester. But enough already. Can we talk about modern biology now? I get a strong impression … Continue reading
Filed under Biology, Ecology and Biodiversity, Education, Epistemology, Evolution, General Science, History, Philosophy, Rant, Science
Arseholes! Systematics, phylogenetics and HPS
There’s been some developments this day. First of all a defunct blog on history and philosophy of science has revived with a new skin and as a group blog: AmericanScience: A Team Blog. I keep wanting to say “F&*k yeah!” … Continue reading
Filed under Evolution, History, Links, Philosophy, Rant, Science, Systematics
What is systematics and what is taxonomy?
Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of calls for governments to properly fund systematics and taxonomy (and a number of largely molecular-focused biologists insisting they can do the requisite tasks with magic molecule detectors, so don’t … Continue reading
Filed under Biology, Epistemology, Evolution, History, Natural Classification, Philosophy, Systematics
