A busy fortnight 9 Dec 201122 Jun 2018 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 sleepy little town outside Sydney. I got a love kiss from a huntsman spider there – s/he didn’t mean it; s/he was in my towel and I rubbed him/her hard against my leg. This is what a love kiss from a huntsman looks like. They’re not [very] venomous, but they typically don’t brush their chelicerae after meals, so you can get nasty infections. The image at right is nearly two weeks later… Here’s a huntsman, also known as a wolf spider. Pretty, ain’t it? After I drove back (ten hours’ drive) I then turned around and flew back to Sydney due to bad organisation, where I attended my nephew’s wedding. Back to Melbourne where I gave a talk to the Invertebrate Biology conference at the University of Melbourne. I tried to convince them that species do not have theoretical meanings. We’ll see. I’m quite busy with my present work, so I can’t do anything substantial for a while (every time I say that, though, I write something within 24 hours. Maybe it’s a geas). So have fun in the lead up to Summer (or, if you are unfortunate enough to live in the north, Winter) Soltisial Celebrations… Administrative Philosophy Species concept
Administrative Another antipodean philosopher’s blog 3 Dec 2008 Note the careful ambiguity there: this is not a blog of another antipodean philosopher, but another blog of this antipodean philosopher. The ins and outs of Australian politics and policies are not of interest to much more than 0.3% of the world, so my asseverations are even less interesting to… Read More
Book At last, a proper review of Fodor and Piatelli-Palmerini 3 Jul 2010 Peter Godfrey-Smith reviews What Darwin Got Wrong in the London Review of Books, and finally the review matches the book I am reading. PGS is usually right on everything, so read this one. It is critical, but doesn’t suppose that FAPP have made grade school level errors, like so many… Read More
Epistemology Is the soul something we should be agnostic about? 27 May 201127 May 2011 In a piece on the Scientific American guest blog, the day before mine, Sean Carroll made an interesting argument: Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely… Read More
Unusual to see the Scottish spelling the Irish geis is more usual. Wiki definition is far better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geis
Well, several Americans have given me That Look when I used the term in their presence. I just assumed you all had some objection to the term.
Are huntsmen and wolf spiders really the same? My understanding was that huntsmen were large and relatively harmless (unless you rub them against your leg), while wolf spiders were smaller and more dangerous. Plus male wolf spiders did that wonderful dance during courtship. In any case, sounds like a hell of a week.