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
Biology A leading philosopher blogs… about cuttlefish! 4 Jul 20124 Jul 2012 Peter Godfrey-Smith is one of the leading philosophers of biology and science, and he is presently Distinguished Professor of philosophy at CUNY’s Graduate Centre. He also blogs! It’s nice to see that employed academics are catching up with the rest of us. What’s really interesting is that Peter is focussing… Read More
Religion A god is born 14 Oct 2009 In 1502, an indigenous princess was born named in Spanish María de la Onza, or “Mary of the Jaguar”. She has become a mythological figure, and her name contracted to María Lionza, and she is the senior deity of a trinity of gods worshipped in rural regions near Caracas in… Read More
Religion Thomism and Intelligent Design 16 Feb 2009 I have always had a sneaking admiration for neo-Thomistic accounts of creation and evolution, because they tend to think of creation as the actualisation of the real world with no limitations on natural law within the created universe. Now read this nice piece by Michael Tkacz. You need not agree… 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.