Interdisciplinarity never works 18 Jun 2010 Wait until the psych students convince the physics students that they are just hallucinating their pendulums. The the philosophy students will show them all that it’s just a matter of an error in language and they can all go about getting on with their oof!… where did that come from? Education Humor Metaphysics Philosophy Science Philosophy
Biology The evolution of sex solved 4 May 2010 The reason for sexual reproduction has long been debated. Now at last, the solution: Read More
Biology What is systematics and what is taxonomy? 5 Feb 201123 Jul 2023 Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of calls for governments to properly fund systematics and taxonomy (and a number of largely molecular-focused biologists insisting they can do the requisite tasks with magic molecule detectors, so don’t fund old-school, fund new-fangled-tech). But I think that there is… Read More
Epistemology You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals 7 Apr 2010 The song of the title of this post is a catchy and highly amusing piece that suggests that if we’re just mammals we should have sex. It’s sort of a low brow version of Andrew Marvell’s To his coy mistress. Instead of Time’s wingéd chariot, we should do what mammals… Read More
But, you know, those interdisciplinary literary critics who go on and on about theory of mind deserve to bopped in the head by a pendulum. And, come to think of it, let’s make that a Foucault pendulum. Call it Michel’s Revenge. Whap!
Inopportune invocations of M. Foucault are considered an act of war (and rather tacky) in most English literature seminars, you know (:
OMG. I was in a an institute retreat this week. We were talked at by a couple of sociologists. I think one of them should do a study of academic communication, and explain why they speak in such general terms, and why this annoys scientists so. In fairness, I was in a stats conference in Norway at the start of the week. I had a *ducks* fascinating chat on the train about creating random fields that were Markov, and *ducks* which even worked on manifolds. *ducks* thud Owwww. Physics is not as deterministic as they told us.