Dinosaur books! 26 Jun 2010 Greg Paul does some marvellous illustrations of dinosaurs and contemporary organisms, but they are usually only in magazines. Colour publishing being what it is, they are not collected in a quality book, but new technologies mean quality colour books can be printed on demand. So he announced this on the Dinosaur Mail List: Over the years I have wanted to do a coffee table style book featuring my color art, but the cost versus sales ratio makes this at best difficult if going through the traditional publishing system. The web offers an alternative method in which the book is produced and mailed only upon demand by a purchaser, so I am trying this experiment. Robert Telleria has produced two such books via Blurb. The contents are similar in that they include the same works. They differ in that one is large format and includes both the latest and when pertinent the old version of the art, the other is smaller and lower in cost, and due to limitations of the system does not include the old versions. A number of recent pieces are included. The text, which is specific to the illustrations, includes some discussion of the science and thinking behind each color. Deluxe Edition www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1429219 Standard Edition www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1429123 They look very cool… Evolution Evolution
Academe More deaths 18 Oct 2010 Two researchers have recently died who are relevant to evolutionary biology. Leigh Van Valen, the originator of the “Red Queen Hypothesis” and a proponent of the Ecological Species Concept, died yesterday, John Hawks is reporting. I had some correspondence with him, which makes me glad that I did before he… Read More
Cognition 50 words for snow 3: what are phenomena? 27 Sep 20171 Mar 2019 Series Conceptual confusion The economics of cultural categories What are phenomena? What counts as sociocultural? Species Constructing phenomena Explanations and phenomena If experienced observers are trained to observe natural phenomena in their environment, pace the “interference” of cultural accidents, what is it they observe? As I mentioned before, we are not… Read More
Evolution Speciation – A brief history: The late eighteenth century 5 Apr 20146 Apr 2014 After Linnaeus had settled on the older mechanism of hybridisation of genera with other genera or with varieties formed by geographical conditions as the cause of new species, the topic began to pick up speed. Hybridisation remained the usual method as late as the 1830s (e.g., in Lindley) but two… Read More