Darwin, Romanes and Bateson on speciation 1 May 2010 The ever-productive Donald Forsdyke, who I quoted in the previous post, has a new paper up on the origins of reproductive isolation, and theories of speciation. Proving that no good idea is ever entirely novel, it turns out some of my ideas in this paper are prefigured here. At least, I think they are good ideas… Evolution History Species and systematics EvolutionHistory
Administrative Miscellany 8 Nov 2007 Some things that piqued my interest without triggering a full post: Read More
Biology Why is Darwin’s theory so controversial? 24 Nov 2012 So asks this essay and gets the whole thing wrong. Darwin’s theories (plural) are not controversial because they imply that species are mutable. This was a widely held view by preachers, moralists, Aristotelians, naturalists, breeders, formalists, folk biology, and even biblical translators. Darwin was not controversial because he implied racist… Read More
Book More FAPPery 27 Apr 2010 Another review of What Darwin got wrong, by Kenan Malik, at The Literary Review. The money quote: Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini are no creationists, but ‘outright, card-carrying, signed-up, dyed-in-the-wool, no-holds-barred atheists’. That, however, only makes worse the incoherence of their understanding of Darwinism. There is much that Darwin got wrong, from… Read More