Dibs and dobs 28 Oct 2008 One of the downsides to being old is that your favourite teachers die. I learned most of what I know about the Empiricists, in particular John Locke, from a book by C. B. Martin, who passed away recently. Hat tip to Leiter. I didn’t know he spent so much time in Australia. John Lynch is tantalising me with a workshop I very much want to go to but can’t: The 2009 ASU-MBL History of Biology Seminar: Theory in the Life Sciences. It looks like enormous fun (hey, I’m a philosopher: I use philosophical values of “fun”). I Have Views on what counts as a theory in life sciences, and I’d love to see how well they hold up under withering scorn criticism. [If any of my incredibly wealthy readers want to stump for a plane ticket, I can stay with Lynch again. He didn’t mind the snoring much…] The internet filter issue is gathering speed. A good criticism is made by Argosy about the failure of internet filtering in Pakistan and China. Education General Science Internet filtering Technology
Education Drama, journalism and science 17 Feb 201317 Feb 2013 Recently the Jonah Lehrer scandal was raised again when he was paid $20,000 to speak on his journalistic dishonesty by the Knight Foundation. I cynically noted on Twitter that being honest and as accurate as I could be netted me exactly nothing in the way of honoraria (I think I… Read More
Evolution How to review intelligent design: defending Hacking 21 Sep 200718 Sep 2017 Jason Rosenhouse, of Evolutionblog, has posted a rather snarky review of a book review by the historian and philosopher Ian Hacking that was published in The Nation. Jason titled his comment “How not to defend evolution”. Here’s my take on it. Read More
General Science Etruscans 20 Jun 200718 Sep 2017 In a well known quote, the nineteenth century historian and classicist Theodore Mommsen said that the origins of the Etruscans was “neither capable of being known nor worth the knowing”. He had no idea of the results made possible by molecular genetic studies, naturally, as nobody did at that time,… Read More
I never met the man. But there’s a link to a PDF of his obit at the U Calgary link (first one given).
This is very sad. I have Martin’s The Mind In Nature (2008) right next to me as I read this. I picked it up from my library at my university the day before he died–last Wednesday. So far, this is an interesting, austere book–much inside to be admired and fruitfully studied. If the publication was anything like the man, what interesting details can you give us about him, John? Mourning together, BR