Education The Scientist’s Operating Manual 18 Sep 2010 As you may know I suggested that we should produce this text as a group. So I thought that I’d add some structure, and use this post to link in existing material as suggested. If you think you’d like to contribute, write and let me know. Post it on your… Continue Reading
Education How scientists think, a book proposal 17 Sep 2010 I’m too busy at the moment to blog, write, think or maintain my personal hygiene, so I thought I’d add content by getting my readers to provide it for me. So I’m going to propose a little project. First, a bit of background. I often try to explain to students… Continue Reading
Education If only he had used his science for niceness, instead of evil 11 Sep 2010 In the Great Tone Debate, it seems to me that we have been overlooking some of the crucial elements of mixed strategies. Something that works in one case may not work in another, and so general arguments that one should be nice or dickish all the time are going to… Continue Reading
Education Crowdsourcing question: scientific method book? 8 Sep 2010 I need a recommendation of a short simple book that provides a good, but not simplistic, outline of how it is that scientists reach their conclusions. Failing that, a good paper. Targeted at non-philosophy undergraduate students. I have been looking rather hard and nothing much of worth since the 1930s,… Continue Reading
Book Stephen Hawking and the creation of the universe 4 Sep 201024 Nov 2022 I should begin by saying that I haven’t read Hawking’s book with Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design, and I probably won’t. But the way it is being hyped in the media, social and mainstream, suggests that what he is claiming, which is nothing novel, is that we have finally done… Continue Reading
Biology Ranking 24 Aug 2010 A diversion in the natural classification series. In natural classification, we typically do not find that patterns due to the process of historical causation come arrayed neatly in boxes within boxes, and yet one of the most common temptations is for classifiers to set up fixed ranks. The Linnaean scheme… Continue Reading
Biology Short sharp definitions 11 Aug 2010 Over on Twitter, Waterstones bookshops are running a competition to define philosophy in 100 characters. My definitions are below, but it got me thinking. Einstein, I think, said that if you can’t explain it in simple words you don’t understand it, and so I wonder if we can do this… Continue Reading
Education Phil Plait destroys the earth 23 Jul 2010 The Bad Astronomer has a TV show! Bad Universe: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiSJ73pckw4] I hope it gets to Australia before the Big One hits. [Why can’t we do a philosophy show like this? Oh, wait…] Continue Reading
Administrative The Bastards are emerging 17 Jul 2010 We have now had three posts on Opinionated Bastards . Lorax on grant funding, Mike Haubrich on why religion and science are incompatible on an inductive inference, and now Eamon Knight on why pedophile priests and women priests are equivalent in the eyes of the Vatican. Stay tuned for more… Continue Reading
Biology The difference between philosophy and biology 6 Jun 2010 Robert Paul Wolf continues his fascinating, and dare I say name-naming and body-locating, autobiobiographical memoirs of the academy and his place in it. In the latest episode he mentions Ed Wilson, the famous ant specialist, sociobiologist, and promoter of science. Brian Leiter cites the passage in which Wolf has a… Continue Reading