Feeling smug 29 Jul 2009 … because I sent off two papers this week to journals. I’ll feel a lot smugger, of course, if they get accepted. One is on genetic information (yeah, you all know about that one!) and the other about natural kinds in biology, a historical-philosophical piece. We’ll see. Even more smugifying, I started a new paper on what it means to be atheist and agnostic: thanks to all my readers, discussants and outright opponents on this blog. It won’t be done for a few weeks or months, but it’s based closely on some of the arguments we’ve had here. I aim to submit it to Zygon. I’m continuing on my paper about evolution and religion and what it means if religion evolved for the truth of it (with Paul Griffiths), and also a talk about adaptation and religion, both of which I hope to give at a conference at Notre Dame in Indiana. *Sigh*, more travelling. I’m not as young as I once was. I only have four book reviews to do. I might write a book… [You watch. Now that I have invoked the academic gods, they will strike me down.] Epistemology Evolution Philosophy Religion Science
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Why should abortion be a matter of public policy? 1 Jun 2009 Something I don’t get, possibly because I’m a white male, is why we should pay any attention in the public domain to the concerns various people have about abortion. If Catholics don’t like it, don’t do it. If Protestants don’t like it (and that is something that only arose in… Read More
Evolution The kangaroo is the first organism, but the fungus is not the biggest 12 Jun 200724 Nov 2022 So the record for the “world’s largest organism” has again been claimed for a fungus, something Stephen Jay Gould wrote about in his wonderfully titled essay “A Humongous Fungus Among Us” back in 1992, and which was included in his volume A Dinosaur in a Haystack. The previous fungus, Armillaria… Read More
History Reminiscences of one who was there 12 Apr 2010 Early on, when I thought I would be an intellectual, a dilettante but still an intellectual, at the age of 17 or so, I read several books that I found at a second hand bookstore (my usual place of recreation). One was a little volume called Critique of Pure Tolerance,… Read More
I’ll be flying to NYC first and then Washington. So I might come via that airport – one I’ve been to before. Shall I visit Morris Minnesota? Does anyone even live there?
Good work. I haven’t ever perused the periodical, Zygon, before. Randomly picked out an article entitle “Beauty of the Living World”, which looks interesting. “I’ll feel a lot smugger, of course, if they get accepted.” True dat. Although I can never manage to drum up a sense of smugness on submission. Only a sense of fear and foreboding.
both of which I hope to give at a conference at Notre Dame in Indiana. Will you be announcing when this is? I’ll be in Bloomington at IU, and I’d be more than willing to head up to South Bend and see your presentation.
Two very intresting conference papers, would love to attend, bit to far from Edinburgh though. I take it they will turn up in print in some form in the future? Looking forward to seeing these ideas developed further.
This isn’t a democracy! It’s an elite group of bastards who happened to have wangled an invite. Actually, right now I don’t know, but I’ll be finalising the trip over the next week, so I’ll announce what I can when that’s done. I can always give other talks, you know, if someone wants to organise them…
One is on genetic information I’m looking forward to that. Will you be running it past the Fig Newton of Information Theory, by any chance?