A night about religion 1 Oct 2010 I’m part of a tag team night for the Student Philosophy Association at the University of Queensland. The Facebook page is here. I’m arguing for… guess which? Philosophy Religion Philosophy
Politics A personal revelation 8 Dec 2007 John, hear me. What? Who said that? It is I, God. Oh come on. PZ, is that you? I’m not buying it. It is I, God. Look, I’ll prove it. [Clouds in the sky form the letters “Yep, It’s Me” for a minute and then evaporate.] Ummm, OK, for the… Read More
Biology Are humans just animals? 2 Jul 20133 Jul 2013 Yesterday I heard on the radio a discussion by neuroscientist turned philosopher Raymond Tallis, who was arguing that humans are not just animals, and that consciousness is not just what happens in the brain. He went on at length about “Darwinitis”, a disease of intellectuals who wish to explain everything… Read More
Biology Godfrey Smith’s book 27 Jul 2009 Peter Godfrey Smith is a leading philosopher of biology, a professor at Harvard. He has recently published an important book on the nature of evolution, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, in which he moves away from the gene centrism of Dawkins to a reproducer view in which objects that form… Read More
Hmmm… Roland will argue that there is substantial empirical evidence for the miraculous, and that contemporary understanding of God is similar to physicists’ understanding of quantum mechanics in the 1920’s. Would “confused” be a good description? Is the Holy Ghost the theistic equivalent of Schrödinger’s cat? (yes, I know that was later, but God can work backwards in time – ask Wm. A. Dembski for details) Anyway, I hope you all have fun and don’t squash any of the students.
A sub-atomic incident? I wonder how Joseph would’ve taken that when Mary broached the subject? ‘Hey Joe, I’ve had a sub-atomic incident, and erm, you’re gonna be a daddy!’
John– heads-up (if you haven’t already seen it)– the current (30.ix.2010) “Nature” has a News and Views about an article in “Ibis” about species. An attempt to discipline the species concept (the?) for purposes of biodiversity surveys: start by figuring out how different (genetically, appearance-wise…) non-interbreeding sympatric species are (these are thus the “gold standard” for species), try to rule that that’s the degree of difference that should be used for non-sympatric populations which could be distinguished or synonymized… (An accident that it comes from a bird journal? there have got to be groups where it is harder to be sure that sympatric populations are non-interbreeding than birds!)
Thanks, Allen. A quick look over indicates that this is basically OTUs for BSCs. I’ll read it in detail when I can and blog on it.