History The first biological species concept 10 May 200918 Sep 2017 Before this text in 1686, the term species just meant some sort or kind of organism. It was a Latin word in ordinary use without much meaning in natural history, but then arguments began whether or not there were one or more species for this or that group, and so… Continue Reading
Science The science of systematics 9 May 2009 As the science of order (“taxonomy”), Systematics is a pure science of relations, unconcerned with time, space, or cause. Unconcerned with time: systematics is non-historic and essentially static; it knows only a simple juxtaposition of different conditions of form. Unconcerned with space: geographical factors are not primary criteria in the… Continue Reading
Evolution Is religious cognition adaptive? 8 May 2009 There was a paper recently in PNAS on “The cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief“. A couple of bloggers, Epiphenom and I Am David, come to opposite conclusions. Epiphenom says that the study shows that religion is not a side-effect of the evolution of cognitive processes, while IAD says… Continue Reading
Ecology and Biodiversity A new online philosophy of biology journal 8 May 2009 It’s called Philosophy and Theory in Biology. This is based on some heavy hitters: Massimo Pigliucci, Jon Kaplan, Alan Love and Joan Roughgarden are the editors, and the editorial board looks like a Who’s Who of philosophy of biology. No apparent page charges, and it’s online only (I hope they… Continue Reading
Creationism and Intelligent Design Do you believe in evolution? 5 May 2009 Asks MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of the GOP’s Mike Pence. The latter dances around it, trying to avoid asserting what science knows to be true, but this raises an interesting problem: does one have to “believe” in evolution? I mean it’s a physical process (the “fact” side) which has a number… Continue Reading
Philosophy Digesting the literature 5 May 2009 Many years ago, ians, really, I naively asked my lecturer who I thought knew everything in the field, how he kept up with the literature. He shrugged and said he couldn’t, and neither could anyone else. I thought he was just being self deprecating. Experience taught me better shortly. But… Continue Reading
Philosophy A poignant obituary 18 Apr 2009 Geoffrey Midgley’s obit is in the Independent today. A comment online is, I suspect, from one of his sons. Continue Reading
Philosophy You can prove a negative 25 Jun 200822 Jun 2018 Well, no it isn’t philosophically impossible… read on: Continue Reading