Ecology and Biodiversity Apes and evolution in the news 19 Jun 20094 Oct 2017 So there are a couple of interesting developments about fossil apes. One is the retraction by the author of the claim 14 years ago to have found a jaw bone that was evidence of Homo habilis, a precursor species (arguably) of H erectus, in a recent Nature. Previously he and… Continue Reading
Epistemology Linnaeus: the founder of databases 17 Jun 200918 Sep 2017 A couple of years ago I was in Exeter, and was chatting to Staffan Müller-Wille, who is an expert in the history of biology specialising in Linnaean taxonomy. He mentioned to me that Linnaeus had invented the index card in order to keep track of the increasingly large data set… Continue Reading
Biology The Demon Spencer 16 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 When I first started to read philosophy and history I heard about this demon. His name was Herbert Spencer, and he was famous for three things: Incomprehensible prose Coining “Survival of the Fittest”, and Coming up with a “devil take the hindmost” laissez faire political philosophy that was called “social… Continue Reading
Epistemology Laws and explanation in history 14 Jun 2009 One of the critical pieces on the philosophy of history was published as Laws and Explanation in History in 1957. Now the hist-analytic site, run by Stephen Bayne, has added the entirety of the book online to its growing list of significant philosophical contributions to the philosophy of history. Links… Continue Reading
Creationism and Intelligent Design Objecting to the prevailing tide 12 Jun 2009 My friend and costudent of Gareth Nelson, Malte Ebach, persists in his campaign to bring some clarity to evolutionary and systematics thinking. I may not always agree with him, but he’s often clearer on these matters than his targets, so I refer you to his recent post on paraphyletic thinking…. Continue Reading
Evolution When do species begin? 11 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 Last night I attended a talk by Alexander Bird of Bristol on the metaphysics of natural kinds. I confess that a lot of it struck me as largely irrelevant to the actuality of the science as the level of metaphysics here, involving possible worlds and necessity, not to mention semantic… Continue Reading
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Who’s responsible? 11 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 Also, it seems that one only is motivated by religion if one is not Christian. By Dan Mathewson. Continue Reading
Evolution Alien life in Phoenix 10 Jun 2009 I find Paul Davies, the physicist who gets quoted on everything, really annoying sometimes. This is one of those times. Davies appropriates another’s ideas (Carol Cleland’s), arguing that we should look for a “second kind of life” on earth. Then he appropriates yet another’s work (Philippa Uwin’s work on nanobes),… Continue Reading
Epistemology What is a philosopher? 10 Jun 2009 Before you all go making rude comments, go read this post by Michèle Lamont at Crooked Timber and especially the interesting comments that follow. Continue Reading
History The doctrine of double truth 8 Jun 2009 Somewhere on the internecks, I engaged in a discussion of the origins of the “double truth” theory. I wish I could find it again (let me know if you know), but I was asked where the doctrine arose. I have done a little digging, and this is a report on… Continue Reading