Ecology and Biodiversity How not to Feyerabend 5 Oct 2007 On Monday night last, Jason Grossman, a philosopher form the Australian National University rang me with an idea. He was coming to my university to give a talk entitled “How to Feyerabend”, arguing that Feyerabend was a dadaist rather than an anarchist. I’d tell you more about his talk, but… Continue Reading
Humor Teh LOLCat Bible 4 Oct 2007 LOLCats are one of those things you either hate or hate really really a lot. But the idea of translating the entire Bible into LOLCatese? Priceless. Someone has way too much spare time (and will we see battles fought over the Auterised Bibel translation versus the VulgarCat version? I hope… Continue Reading
Humor Achieving enplightenment – Amusing typogarphical errors 3 3 Oct 2007 The estimable and overproductive Neil Levy* at CAPPE at my alma mater, has sent me Terry Pratchett’s and Stephen Brigg’s book/diary Lu-Tse’s Yearbook of Enlightenment 2008, with a note “To help you chart your course into unemployment”. For which I give much thanks, as it also contains many analects of… Continue Reading
Evolution On extremes 1 Oct 2007 Thinking some more about PZ’s latest comedic act, I think I see what the problem is. Continue Reading
Humor Maurruzh in the pit of hell 30 Sep 2007 The arch-Enemy of all humanity, PZ Mocals, has posted what he no doubt thinks is a funny skit. I told him good, I did. There’s no way we can tolerate this attack of godlessness. Continue Reading
Evolution The more things change.. 2 Sep 2007 I have decided that I am sick and tired of the antievolutionists. When I got into this game about 15 years or more ago, I thought that if we just argued and presented information about what evolution really is, and what it means for modern thinking, people would move away… Continue Reading
Evolution Christianity Today = Inanity Today? 29 Aug 2007 Oh honestly. Christianity Today reports the travel of the Australopithecine fossil “Lucy” to the US with the closing paragraph: It should be interesting to see what the interest in Lucy is, given that according to opinion polls roughly half of the American public has expressed serious reservations about the theory… Continue Reading
Politics Rudd’s strip joint visit 18 Aug 2007 I do not care if a politicians visits a strip club. In fact, a politician that did it and owns up without embarassment would be a good choice to pick, because you know he’s not going to pull that family values crap in the future. But a politician who visits… Continue Reading
Evolution Popper peeps papally at UD 15 Aug 2007 Popper’s view of science has been supplanted by a number of later views, not least being the sociological accounts of Kuhn and Lakatos, which, being sociological, don’t tell us what is science but only how it proceeds descriptively. Prescriptive views of science are much more nuanced than Popper these days, and they lack a simple slogan like the cry of “falsifiability!” They typically focus on the heuristics (rules of inference) and how they have developed overall and in particular disciplines. If you want to argue that ID is science, go read van Fraassen, or Hacking, or Giere, or Laudan and get back to me. Continue Reading
Administrative Home again 3 Aug 2007 So I’m home from Ish, and the front part of my brain is giddy and tired while the rest has just shut down. I don’t travel well, I’m afraid. One thing that I came back fired up over are the unfinished projects I have running. So I intend to finish… Continue Reading