Logic and philosophy Vale Michael Ghiselin 17 Jun 202424 Jun 2024 Michael Ghiselin, who was the originator of (the modern) view that species are individuals, died on 14 June 2024. He was a very generous person with his time for antipodean philosophers. With his passing, the authors of the SAI thesis, as it is called, are both gone: he and his… Continue Reading
Biology Aware is finished. Now for something different 14 May 202414 May 2024 So I finished presenting the book Aware on my substack, which will now ferment in my bottom drawer (metaphorically) until it ripens. While that is happening I am preparing to edit some nineteenth century sources for discussions of classification, taxonomy, species, higher and lower taxa, and many other subjects. Does… Continue Reading
Australian stuff A local talk 15 Mar 202415 Mar 2024 HPS book celebration at the University of Melbourne Continue Reading
Biology Species-related publications 8 Sep 20238 Sep 2023 What’s a personal blog for, if not to blow my own horn? Well, it can only be to blow the horns of those who I have collaborated with, of course. Two of my most recent publications are: The first is a chapter in the open Access book edited by Schwartz… Continue Reading
Epistemology Operative concepts 27 Apr 202227 Apr 2022 Gave a talk “The Good Species” yesterday (26 April 2022) to the HPS crowd at UniMelb. The discussion went a way I didn’t expect: classification in the psychiatric and medical domains. I proposed a third kind of concept formation in science: what I am calling “operative concepts”: folk terms and… Continue Reading
Book New edited species book 19 Oct 202119 Oct 2021 So, what have I been doing for the Covid Lockdown. Many things. This is one of them. The CRC Press link is here, but I’ll give the table of contents below. The beautiful cover art is by Scott Partridge, an artist in North Carolina. It is entitled Abyssal Zone. Table… Continue Reading
History John Ray on species fixity and race 19 Sep 202019 Sep 2020 For since in nature the number of species is fixed and determined, since ‘God on the sixth day rested from all his labour’, that is, from the creation of new species, however infinite might be the number of plants varying in colour and multiplicity of flower, with new ones arising… Continue Reading
Biology Do we need, and can we get, a single authoritative list of species? 4 Aug 202025 Aug 2020 In a recent paper, Garnett et al. [2020] have set up what they refer to as the principles for creating a single authoritative list of all known species. This is required because there are no such singular lists (one was attempted in the 1990s, and another in the naughties) to which… Continue Reading
Philosophy My species book receives a Choice award 11 Feb 202011 Feb 2020 I am delighted to tell you that my book Species: The Evolution of the Idea has received a 2019 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Award! The book met the meticulous Choice criteria from originality, uniqueness, and importance in building undergraduate library collections, to overall excellence in presentation and value to… Continue Reading
Ecology and Biodiversity New book contract 29 Jul 201930 Oct 2019 Well CRC Press haven’t learned their lesson yet, and have given me, Frank Zachos (Vienna) and Igor Pavlinov (Moscow) a contract for an edited book of science and philosophy dialogue entitled Species and Beyond. Anyone who wants a particular topic to be covered, leave it in the comments. I won’t… Continue Reading