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
Evolution Myths about Darwin 10 Feb 200918 Sep 2017 We are going to hear a lot about Darwin this year, especially this month for his birthday (happy 200th, Chas. You don’t look a day over 150) and in November for the sesquicentenary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. And you will hear or read repetitions of… Read More
Censorship Internet censorship in Australia ramps up 19 Mar 2009 I’m posting this on my American blog because the Australian government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority is fining people on Australian sites who give the links below the fold $11,000/day. Pretty well everything I feared about censorship by the internet filter and heavy handed government action is coming… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity On speciation 26 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 The Atavism has some thoughts on speciation in response to a high school teacher’s query. He uses the following nice diagram to indicate what some of the core species definitions mean: It’s neat, and therefore… wrong. By which I mean that given the rule that biological organisms do what they… 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.