Biology Book reviews 24 Apr 2010 Several interesting book reviews arrived in my feed this morning, of books I have not read. Jerry Coyne reviews FAPP’s What Darwin Got Wrong alongside Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth. I cannot help but think that he is on the one hand very easy on Dawkins and fails to… Continue Reading
Education Tired debates 17 Apr 2010 There’s a whole bunch of arguments that are becoming very tiring, and in which I think we have made no apparent progress for far too long, such as the fooraw between Massimo Pigliucci and PZ Merkel, the German chancellor. I propose, therefore, to say nothing about them after this post… Continue Reading
General Science Thoughts on the periodic table 4 Feb 2010 Eric Scerri has written the definitive history of Mendele’ev’s periodic table and how it came to be formulated. He also has a paper in which he proposes a new formulation, based on historical considerations of what it was that Mendele’ev was trying to do, and on more theoretical considerations of… Continue Reading
General Science Correlation does not imply causation 20 Dec 2009 One of the oldest fallacies is the “fallacy of affirming the consequent“. Basically it is the logical form of the old statistical fallacy of taking correlation to imply causation. Just because two things are true doesn’t mean there is some kind of causal relation, or even logical relation, between them…. Continue Reading
General Science Some more on Toulmin 12 Dec 2009 The History of the Philosophy of Science list has been unusually active, and even more unusually fairly restrained and complimentary, in discussing Stephen Toulmin’s significance. One point, made by Avner Cohen, is that Toulmin himself had given an assessment of his work and his modus operandi in an interview in… Continue Reading
Epistemology Sausages, and science 6 Dec 2009 One should not see, goes the old saw, laws or sausages being made. This is also true of science, for a reason. Before something is published, scientists argue, insult each other, discuss things in casual ways and use unclear jargon and terminology that looks like, to an outsider who is… Continue Reading
General Science Computers aren’t science 25 Nov 2009 As I read the science feeds for various sites, I am struck how often people are reporting on computers and computer techniques. News flash: Computers aren’t science, any more than glass blowing is chemistry or addition is physics. Computing is a mathematical technique that uses electronic shortcuts. Computation is an… Continue Reading
General Science The New Yorker on “Freakonomics” and Global Warming 15 Nov 2009 To be skeptical of climate models and credulous about things like carbon-eating trees and cloudmaking machinery and hoses that shoot sulfur into the sky is to replace a faith in science with a belief in science fiction. This is the turn that “SuperFreakonomics” takes, even as its authors repeatedly extoll… Continue Reading
Epistemology Darwinian evolution for culture 15 Nov 2009 Following on from my piece about songs and scientists, underverse (Chris Schoen) has taken me to task: … it becomes easy to see one of the flaws in memetic thinking. Changes in “culture” differ from changes in biology in that they are not random; they are directed toward a specific… Continue Reading
Evolution Notre Dame conference – the washup 3 Nov 2009 It’s been a great conference. Simon Conway Morris was fun (but wrong! It’s OK, he says I am too). Peter Bowler’s talk on “what-if history” – what if Darwin had drowned on the Beagle? was actually interesting and raised some nice points about both the nature of the theory of… Continue Reading