What’s a personal blog for, if not to blow my own horn? Well, it can only be to blow the horns of those who I…
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Published 8 Sep 2023
Category: Systematics
Published 9 Oct 2021
How to do numerical taxonomy
Hint: use only original IBM punch cards
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Published 30 Sep 2020
The first phylogeny
The only diagram in the Origin is famously the hypothetical series of species forming a tree structure, but it isn’t an actual classification based on his…
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Published 4 Aug 2020
Do we need, and can we get, a single authoritative list of species?
In a recent paper, Garnett et al. [2020] have set up what they refer to as the principles for creating a single authoritative list of all…
4 Comments
Published 29 Jan 2020
Putnam on taxonomic terms
Terms with respect to which we defer to experts include both technical terms in science and such terms as ‘elm’ or ‘beech’ (in the United…
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Published 21 Sep 2019
Is racism Christian?
I was taught that racism developed out of Johannes Blumenbach’s Anthropological Treatises in the late eighteenth century, specifically his doctoral thesis On the Natural Variety…
17 Comments
Published 29 Jul 2019
New book contract
Well CRC Press haven’t learned their lesson yet, and have given me, Frank Zachos (Vienna) and Igor Pavlinov (Moscow) a contract for an edited book…
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Published 18 Jul 2019
A not terribly good post on the species problem
As a biological phenomenon the species problem is worthy of serious study as an end in itself, and not as a mere corollary to work…
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Published 11 May 2019
Draft of talk, for comment
I will be presenting this talk in Brisbane in a few weeks. Have a look and make suggestions.
2 Comments
Published 20 May 2018
Superstition and the fossil record
Superstition is not without value. Generally held beliefs give apparent order and coherence to human communities, qualities that are valued by some persons, especially those…
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