Briefly 13 Jul 2009 Just a short note to interrupt the no doubt by now telepathic game of Mornington Crescent being played on this blog… I have give both my papers, one the the local conference and one to the international. It’s always really comforting when the leading historians in the field are sitting in your audience as you deliver some revisionary historical interpretation (in this case about Whewell and Mill)… and they’re nodding vigorously! Happened once before when I was criticising Ernst Mayr and one of his doctoral students, Jon Hodge, was in the audience at Exeter a couple of years ago. This is the first time my talk was on the first day of the conference, so I can now go and get pissed for the remaining three days. I may not be back for some time. Also, I seem to have lost my power supply for the Mac. But fear not! I am alive, and will return to blogging anon. Administrative History
Administrative Massive Scienceblogs exodus 8 Jul 2010 I’m going to have to update the “Recovering Sciencebloggers” list at the bottom of the RHS panel; around a dozen bloggers have said they either will stop blogging, or leave Scienceblogs. When I get the time I’ll link to their new blogs. But I have to say that the reasons… Read More
Evolution William Smellie on the great chain of being 2 Mar 2009 William Smellie wrote The Philosophy of Natural History in 1791, and it remained in print for over a century. It’s a lovely and explicit expression of the Great Chain of Being view that all things grade insensibly from simple to perfect, and all classifications are arbitrary. This was effectively the… Read More
Biology What is systematics and what is taxonomy? 5 Feb 201123 Jul 2023 Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of calls for governments to properly fund systematics and taxonomy (and a number of largely molecular-focused biologists insisting they can do the requisite tasks with magic molecule detectors, so don’t fund old-school, fund new-fangled-tech). But I think that there is… Read More