A series of posts on Categories in systematics 7 May 20257 May 2025 They are on Substack of course, and I forgot to link to them here, so: https://johnwilkins.substack.com/p/category-mistakes-with-explanation https://johnwilkins.substack.com/p/category-mistakes-in-scientific-metaphysics https://johnwilkins.substack.com/p/explanation-and-inference-in-science https://johnwilkins.substack.com/p/concepts-methods-and-categories Biology Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution Genetics Metaphysics Science Species and systematics
Epistemology My latest paper 15 Feb 2013 Science & Education, February 2013, Volume 22, Issue 2, pp 221-240 Biological Essentialism and the Tidal Change of Natural Kinds John S. Wilkins Abstract The vision of natural kinds that is most common in the modern philosophy of biology, particularly with respect to the question whether species and other taxa are natural kinds, is… Read More
Philosophy Scoobie Doo Realism 2 Aug 201022 Jun 2018 Came across this at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk: Scoobie-Doo Realism wants to posit that there is an intellectual movement that should be called “Scoobie-Doo Realism.” People take up a stance of Scoobie-Doo Realism when they pose as hard nosed advocates of science and objectivity, because they can unmask a traditionally… Read More
Evolution An ancient cladogram 29 Apr 200918 Sep 2017 As I investigate the use of tree diagrams in the nineteenth century, I keep running across things that shouldn’t be there. One of them was this book: Herdman, William Abbott. 1885. A Phylogenetic Classification of Animals (For the Use of Students). London; Liverpool: Macmillan & Co.; Adam Holden. It’s on… Read More