Lynch on the misuse of history by creationists 6 Nov 2009 John Lynch bells the cat in the History of Science Society Newsletter, and you can read it here. He points out the fundamental dishonesty of ID-“historians” who try to smear evolutionary biology by linking it with Hitler. For some inexplicable reason he fails to link this to a history of the species concept. Creationism and Intelligent Design History
Creationism and Intelligent Design Are creationists rational? 28 Apr 2009 My Synthese essay has finally been published [paywall], in which I argue that on the basis of the more realistic notion of rationality devised by Herbert Simon, called “bounded rationality”, certain heuristics are liable to lead people to rationally choose to believe in creationism under the right conditions. It’s a… Read More
History Happy Newtonmas 25 Dec 201122 Jun 2018 Isaac Newton was born on the 25th of December (under the old Calendar; in our calendar he was born on 4 January, but ignore that for this post). In a wonderful marriage of good scholarship and computers (often a very bad arrangement), Cambridge University Library’s Digital Library project has digitised… Read More
Biology Why is Darwin’s theory so controversial? 24 Nov 2012 So asks this essay and gets the whole thing wrong. Darwin’s theories (plural) are not controversial because they imply that species are mutable. This was a widely held view by preachers, moralists, Aristotelians, naturalists, breeders, formalists, folk biology, and even biblical translators. Darwin was not controversial because he implied racist… Read More