A biosphere for Brisbane 26 Aug 200818 Sep 2017 A few doors down from my office there’s a guy with a ready laugh and a shared love of Macintoshes named Dom Hyde, a philosopher who works on the logic of vagueness among other things. He’s also very active in environmental matters, particularly those associated with the D’Aguilar Range, which is a beautiful tall timber forested region just to the northeast of Brisbane, where I live. It also includes the water catchment for Brisbane. So you might think that when Dom and his friends proposed that this range should be a UNESCO Biosphere, government would fall over itself in protecting this crucial area. Well, you would if you didn’t know Queensland politics and the influence of developers here. However, agreement from the councils and State government has been reached, and the proposal is now underway. Congrats to Dom. He’s a powerhouse in the face of apathy. Ecology and Biodiversity Politics
Ecology and Biodiversity Apes and evolution in the news 19 Jun 20094 Oct 2017 So there are a couple of interesting developments about fossil apes. One is the retraction by the author of the claim 14 years ago to have found a jaw bone that was evidence of Homo habilis, a precursor species (arguably) of H erectus, in a recent Nature. Previously he and… Read More
Australian stuff Australian scientists resign from Murray-Darling Water commission due to a lack of heed 21 May 2011 I don’t usually post these announcements, but GetUp are reliable and on target. Today it was revealed that key scientists have walked away from the government’s Murray Darling Basin Authority process in protest. Right now the Murray Darling Basin Authority is in the final stages of recommending how to deal… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity There is no missing link 11 May 2009 Again, the press are talking about “the missing link“. Let’s get one thing clear. There is no missing link. Rather, there are an indefinite number of missing branches. To have a missing link, you need to visualise evolution as a chain. If there’s a gap in the chain, then you… Read More
Three cheers for Dom! We were undergrads together, and even then he was building his couches from leftover beer crates and spare bicycle parts. Sort of took the “well, one thing can just become another thing easy enough” to heart, and in retrospect it all led to activism and vagueness.
Three cheers for Dom! We were undergrads together, and even then he was building his couches from leftover beer crates and spare bicycle parts. Sort of took the “well, one thing can just become another thing easy enough” to heart, and in retrospect it all led to activism and vagueness.