Around the internets 23 Jul 2009 Razib has a post on a paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology that shows, fairly well, I thought, that Australian aborigines are most closely related to relict populations of indigenous Indian tribes. They are touting this as evidence that the “southern route” from Africa was the one taken by the Australians (which was hardly to be disputed, but it remains the case that a different route might have been taken, say by sea, and that some of that radiation ended up in India. Meanwhile, at the same journal, a paper on Old World toads being nested inside New World toads argues that a single colonisation of India and later Eurasia accounts for it. A typically amusing interview between two of my favour deviants, Henry Gee interviewed (one could call it that, I suppose) by Bora Zivkovic. A cool piece of work on why streams and hills tend to be evenly spaced. And some real criticisms of the appointment of Francis Collins to the head of NIH, based on his science, not his religion. Biology Evolution Humor Religion Science
Epistemology Tautology 5b: The issues, continued 30 Aug 2009 In this post I will discuss these issues: 3. What is a function? Is it in the mind/theory, or in the world? 4. Is natural selection a mechanism? If so, what kind? 5. Is the principle of natural selection a law? Again, this will be pretty short. Read More
Book Announcing a new book of mine 21 Nov 2009 I know, this is getting tedious, but at least I haven’t published as many books as Neil Levy… Ashgate have put up a page announcing an anthology I edited on Intelligent Design and Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. It’s due in August next year. Read More
Evolution A nice discussion of the problems of Evolutionary Psychology 24 Dec 2008 Here at monkey’s uncle, the blog of James Holland Jones, a Stanford anthropologist. Well worth the read. Basically he attacks the presumption that there was some kind of Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness needed to make the rest of the EP argument. Merry Christmas. Or should I say Happy Holidays, being… Read More