I hate a barnacle… 6 Jan 2008 …said Charles Darwin, more than any man ever has. He should have, too – he spent seven years of his life working up the first encyclopedic monograph on the group. But that pales into insignificance compared to Alan Southward, who died last year. The Other 95% has a very nice roundup post on Southward’s work on barnacles, including a just-published paper, which you should immediately go read. And some nice pictures of my favourite historical invert, the Gooseneck Barnacle that gave rise to the myth of the Barnacle Goose. Evolution General Science Species and systematics
Evolution What is “life”, at last 13 Sep 200718 Sep 2017 Recently, that is since 1975 or so, the view has arisen that a living thing is something that satisfies several conditions. Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity How not to Feyerabend 5 Oct 2007 On Monday night last, Jason Grossman, a philosopher form the Australian National University rang me with an idea. He was coming to my university to give a talk entitled “How to Feyerabend”, arguing that Feyerabend was a dadaist rather than an anarchist. I’d tell you more about his talk, but… Read More
Evolution Animals and rights 5 Nov 2007 What with Hollywood archetypes of “animal rights activists” coming out of the woodwork lately, Ryan Gregory and Larry Moran pose the following question: And so I ask, on what basis do you draw the sharp moral line between “humans” and “animals”, “human rights” and “animal rights”, “us” versus “them”? What… Read More
Thanks for the link! Sometimes I feel we are losing all the great naturalists, but I suppose that has been said every generation. I hope the jobs and funding are available to secure a future for the next generation of great naturalists. I love the barnacle goose story, was almost going to include it…
The thing is, Kevin, that the great naturalists of the next generation are all but invisible to us now. But they are out there, be assured.