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
Metaphysics Philosophy quote: Nagel on Analytic Philosophy 1 Oct 20114 Oct 2011 In 1935, Ernest Nagel spent a year traveling around European philosophy departments, and he reported his observations on what he called the new “analytic philosophy” in the Journal of Philosophy. I was particularly taken by his programmatic description: the men with whom I have talked are impatient with philosophic systems… Read More
Biology Darwin Day: Enough already 18 Feb 2011 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 ( and that’s all this is, as I can’t find… Read More
Evolution The Shandyan dilemma 18 Jan 201219 Jan 2012 Reginald Hill, author of the Dalziel and Pascoe detective series among many others, has died. This is a partial post I started some time back, so I thought I’d post it as is. In Recalled to Life, Reginald Hill has one of his two protagonists, Pascoe, interview an ex-nanny who… 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.