Cultural evolution essay 6 Jul 2010 At On The Human there’s an essay by Bill Benzon, a friend and colleague of mine, on cultural evolution: “Cultural Evolution: A Vehicle For Cooperative Interaction Between The Sciences And The Humanities”. It’s open to informed and moderated comments in what they cutely call a Sympoze. One of the comments is mine, of course. This is an initiative of the National Humanities Centre, an independent institute for advanced study. Check out some of the earlier essays: Elliot Sober, Pat Churchland, Margaret Boden(!), Gillian Beer; easily a fabulous site. I put my reply beneath the fold… Evolution Metaphysics Social evolution Evolution
Biology Thermodynamics, and the origin of replicators 14 Mar 2010 Over at Discover, Sean Carroll has a nice post on thermodynamics, free energy and the origins of life. It’s a good intro, but in the course of it he remarks: Obviously there is a lot missing to this story, and much of it is an absence of complete understanding on… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Some new work on speciation and species 12 Dec 2008 There is a widespread tendency of biologists to overgeneralise from their study group of organisms to the whole of biology. Sometimes this is because the organisms are model organisms, like Drosophila (the “fruit flies” that have been used in genetics since the beginning).Other times it is because specialists tend to… Read More
Evolution Sociobiology 5: What is at issue 22 Nov 200718 Sep 2017 So now, I think it’s worth asking what we really can achieve by doing sociobiological investigations, and some of the traps in previous attempts. Read More
I rather like that way of putting things. All too often I just end up saying things like “Dilthey was wrong! Wrong I tells ya!” BTW, when it comes to your rule about not calling people “peodophilic communist sexist pigs” are you willing to make an exception for Beria? The shoe does seem to fit in his case.
Hi, The “Sympoze” portion on On The Human, is a their incorporation of the external vote button for http://www.sympoze.com It’s a social bookmarking site for academics…the idea is to have a place where academics can collectively share, promote and discover online content. An academic blogger can use the external vote button to make it easy for other academics to promote the blogger’s content. Check out the site. We’re in beta testing now, and we’d love feedback.
I liked the ‘I Know it when I see it’ comment. Not an excuse but partly the result of language diffrences. I find I constantly have to exert much effort in translation. I don’t just know it when I see it but find that I have great difficulty developing a syntax and language to describe the movement (I should be perhaps describing this as replication or reproduction) that I do see. Coupled with the mountian ranges of archive and field work it’s a constant juggling act. I find myself making methodology on the hoof and not slowing down to work out how to express it in clear and simple language. But that may be a personal failing. Looks like a fruitfull debate. Look forward to reading more.