Dembski can’t weasel out of this one 19 Mar 2009 Ian Musgrave has a brilliant post showing that Dembski’s revisiting of the old creationist canard that Dawkins’ 1984 Weasel program, designed to show that random variation and selective retention can “evolve” a target phrase, in this case Shakespeare’s “Methinks it is a weasel” (oops; I nearly had my own mutation there – I typed “methings”), is a load of old cobbler’s. Of course we expect nothing less from Ian*, and nothing better from Dembksi. * But my title is better than his. Creationism and Intelligent Design Evolution Humor
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
Administrative In England’s green and wet land 25 Jul 2007 So, I finally have access to the internet. For the past few days I’ve been either in London, on planes, trains or in Exeter, where I am now for the ISHPSSB biennial conference of philosophers and historians (and some sociologists) of science. In London I walked myself silly (getting the… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity What is “life”, again? 8 Sep 200718 Sep 2017 Now we turn to the modern accounts of life. In 1828, Friedrich Wöhler produced uric acid without using “kidney of man or dog”. Prior to that time, there was considered to be something different between organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry. Living things had some “vital fluid” that other things lacked…. Read More