Hunting for the Hat Gene 16 Nov 2009 Mark Liberman has a good essay on why we shouldn’t be seeking genes for X here. Biology Evolution Genetics Philosophy Science
Administrative Second book cover 9 Jul 200922 Jun 2018 From Peter Lang publishers, due this year (soon, I hope!). Order yours now! Read More
History Irish history of science 18 Sep 2009 The deputy prime minister, or Tanaiste, of Ireland, has made a slight gaffe: She said the IDA would be marketing Ireland as the innovation island — “like Einstein explaining his theory of evolution”. After that, she said that Ireland would win sport like Darwin discovering gravity, and sing in Eurovision… Read More
Biology Illiger’s Prodromus 13 Nov 2009 Does anyone have a scan of Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger’s Prodromus systematis et mammalium avium (1811), or at least the introductory section? It appears that Illiger is the one who introduced the rank of family to the Linnean system, and I’d like to find out more. Late note: Thanks to… Read More
Years and years ago, in the first heyday of Sociobiology, in the mid 70s I think, there were lots of people talking about the gene for this and that — with even less basis, obviously, than at present. The reductio ad absurdum that someone proposed then was the gene for cooking. After all, the behavior is universal and advantageous and unique to our clade, so there must be a gene for it.