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
Ecology and Biodiversity Picoeukaryotes 29 Jul 2008 Electron cryotomographic reconstruction of a C. merolae cell. n = nucleus; c = chloroplast; p = peroxisome; er = endoplasmic reticulum. Source Elio Schaechter has a typically informative and informed post on the smallest eukaryotes, a kind of algae called picoeukaryotes. These guys make up half the biomass of all… Read More
Cognition Eww, I stepped in some evolutionary psychology and other crap 4 Dec 201218 Sep 2017 *Sigh* I try and try to stay out of the muck, but they keep pulling me back in! I saw what I thought was a careful and rather overly-documented critique by Edward Clint of a talk by Rebecca Watson against evolutionary psychology (EP). It was full of references and arguments, devoid… Read More
Education Scientism and methodological naturalism 9 Sep 201210 Sep 2012 So I’ve been busy with work, and finding a flat and preparing to move. Larry’s been busy tearing strips off those who argue that the ENCODE data shows the genome is mostly functional (only if you think that doing anything happens to be functional). But I hadn’t forgotten his latest… 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?