Bits and pieces 7 Jan 2009 I’m away from what serves as my computer these days for a while – off to Sydney to find a place to live. Also, the Seed Masters (whom I for one welcome) are upgrading Moveable Type from 3 to 4, so we can’t blog for a few days anyway. But I would like to announce that my paper with Gareth J. Nelson on a possible precursor to punctuated equilibrium and the biological species concept, Pierre Trémaux, has been published in the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. The full details are: Wilkins, John S., and Gareth J. Nelson. 2008. Trémaux on species: A theory of allopatric speciation (and punctuated equilibrium) before Wagner. Hist. Phil. Life Sci. 30: 179-206. A manuscript version is available from the PhilSci Archive. Evolution History Species and systematics trashcan categorial
Evolution Why are there still monkeys? 23 Jul 200818 Sep 2017 Once upon a time, a Roman author named Quintus Ennius wrote: “how like us is that very ugly beast, the ape!” It was quoted by Cicero, and from him Bacon, Montaigne and various others. But always it was thought that apes (simia, literally “the similar ones”), which in that time… Read More
Evolution A good German site 4 Apr 2008 Evilunderthesun is a German language blog that recently did two things: totally demolished the “Nazism was caused by Darwin” trope, with generous quoting of mich, and educated me that the word for April fool in German is Aprilschmerz, which I really like. Tometheus (Prometheus’ and Epimetheus’ little brother, responsible for… Read More
Evolution Going backwards, or, devolution? 29 Sep 2009 Carl Zimmer has another one of his excellent summary articles, this time about the problems encountered by a research group that tried to make a protein that had evolved into one form, evolve back to the starting point. This is being touted as a molecular version of “Dollo’s Law” (which is… Read More