Biology Does life exist? 11 Jan 2014 Life, I believe, is what physics does on one particular planet on a Wednesday. More exactly, it is a series of chemical and physical dynamics that occurs between 3.85 billion years ago and now on this planet. Ferris Jabr, an editor at the Scientific American site, has a piece entitled “Why… Continue Reading
Evolution What is “nature”? 2 Jan 20142 Jan 2014 Many critics of science, including Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig,attack something they call “naturalism”, the view that the natural world is all there is. As Papineau notes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry, the term has no very precise meaning in philosophy, or in science…. Continue Reading
Australian stuff Why anti science? 23 Nov 2013 Over the past few decades there has been an increasingly negative attitude by governments, pundits, religiosi and faux philosophers against science. We have seen an increase in denialism about climate change (one of the most well supported scientific models of the day), vaccination, evolution, medical research in general, and the… Continue Reading
Academe AAHPSSS site now up 16 Nov 201316 Nov 2013 The Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science now has a permanent and updateable website, courtesy of yours truly. It’s at aahpsss.net.au/ All Australasian folk, and visitors to the Lucky Lands, should check to see what is happening. I will put anything up that is relevant,… Continue Reading
Biology Henry Gee’s book “The Accidental Species” 9 Oct 20139 Oct 2013 I have three rules in life. One is, Never get into a land war in Asia. The second is, Locate the nearest exit. The third and most important is: When Henry Gee writes something, believe it. I first encountered Henry through his book In Search of Deep Time, which covered… Continue Reading
Epistemology Will brains be downloaded? Of course not! 26 Sep 201327 Sep 2013 Every so often somebody or other will assert that one day we will achieve immortality by downloading our brains into computers (this week it is Stephen Hawking). What happens when tech support tells the sysadmins to reboot the computers is unclear, from a perspective of personal identity, but I want… Continue Reading
Epistemology Ooh! Shiny! 4 Sep 20134 Sep 2013 Just got the draft cover art of my new book with Malte Ebach: I designed the logo myself… clever, hey? Continue Reading
Creationism and Intelligent Design Is history a science? Creationists don’t think so 4 Sep 20134 Sep 2013 I received a query by email recently from Jennifer, an MD. Dear Dr. Wilkins, I’m wondering if you had the time if you could perhaps steer me in the right direction of help me understand the philosophy behind the argument of creationist use to negate the theory of evolution saying… Continue Reading
Epistemology Finding the narrative 20 Jul 2013 New York Times ex-science journalist Virginia Heffernan has said that she is a creationist, because she prefers the narrative of creation to that of science. David Sessions has a good discussion of the issues here. She is basically taking the line that one chooses one’s narrative of the world. This… Continue Reading
Epistemology Scientists and history 12 Jul 2013 Recently, historian of medicine Edward Shorter made the following comment [follow link for a good discussion]: Historians aren’t as interested [in his work] because they aren’t intellectually equipped to study that kind of thing. Most of them don’t have a scientific background. They can’t get into detailed discussions of therapies because… Continue Reading