In defence of taxonomists [plus ça change] 7 Mar 20187 Mar 2018 I sympathize with the physiologist or ecologist, who after he has written a luminous paper on a Cratoegus or Viola, or Rosa, or Opuntia, endeavors to ascertain the proper name for his plant; but I do not sympathize with his objurgations against the whole tribe of species makers. There is a deal of pseudo science, unripe science—were it not undignified I would characterize some of it by an expressive monosyllabic word suggesting decomposition—published about species by the taxonomists, but I suspect that there is also a large deal of like obnoxious material lying at the doors of the physiologists and ecologists and morphologists. But that fact does not make taxonomy or ecology anything less of a science, nor the work of able men in either less valuable. I am a little weary of hearing from narrow specialists in other departments of biology constant condensation of the taxonomist, and I have been hearing such for the past fifteen years from men who should know better. “What is a Species?”, Samuel W. Williston, 1908. The American Naturalist, Volume 42 (495), 184-194. History Philosophy Quotes Science Species and systematics Species concept Systematics
Epistemology A talk on understanding 27 Jun 2019 I will be presenting this one at ISHPSSSB in Oslo in a couple of weeks. Comments and objections received with the usual ill grace… Read More
Book Three book reviews 31 Aug 2009 Andre Pichot’s version of the “Darwin caused Hitler” mythography is critiqued in the THES by Simon Underdown. Rohan Maitzen at The Valve has a haunting review of Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, coincidentally. And Will Thomas has some things to say about Lorraine Gaston and Peter Gallison’s Objectivity at Ether Wave… Read More
Accommodationism Accommodating science: Evolution and change 2 Mar 20146 May 2014 Robert J. Berry is a geneticist at University College London. He is also an evangelical Christian and has written a number of works on the compatibility of religion (his kind, anyway) and evolution (Berry 1975). He was moved to write to the science journal Nature, in which he took to… Read More