Miscellany 26 Jun 200818 Sep 2017 Barbara Forrest has an excellent analysis and background story on the introduction of the creationist bill in Louisiana, and the organisations supporting it, here at Talk2Reason. There’s a new phylogeny of birds out. See GrrllScientist’s post, and a full size tree here. Late edit See Bird Evolution – Problems with Science for more. Jesse Prinz has an essay on atheism and morality, which I think jumps the shark at the end (how can there be atheist charities? Atheism is the lack of some belief, so any charity that doesn’t make theism part of its core mission already is atheist), here at Psychology Today. Michael Ruse has an interesting and entertaining review of, among other things, Bill Wimsatt’s book, at American Scientist. It turns out we can know what it is like to be a bat… Science After Sunclipse has a discussion on what education can be achieved by science blogs. Laelaps‘ Brian Switek responds. Sciguy reports that Spain is about to give basic human rights to apes, something I have previously supported elsewhere. Stephen Hale had already argued one can prove a negative, before I did. Hat tip: Abnormal Interests. Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution General Science Politics Sermon Social evolution Species and systematics wimsatt
Biology It was 150 years ago tomorrow 23 Nov 2009 … Sergeant Pepper… oops, sorry, wrong theme. 150 years ago tomorrow, people suddenly became smart, observant and able to understand the world. Right? Right? Well, look, I have enormous respect for Darwin, and I think the Origin is a cool and interesting book, but really, no. People were working on… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Couple of organismic blogs 20 Jun 2007 No! Not orgasmic! [There, that should bump up the hits] You all know, of course, the inestimable Darren Naish and his wonderful blog Tetrapod Zoology. What? You don’t? Go there immediately and come back when you’ve read it all, and the old site too. [Fifteen days later] So, I wanted… Read More
Administrative Home again 3 Aug 2007 So I’m home from Ish, and the front part of my brain is giddy and tired while the rest has just shut down. I don’t travel well, I’m afraid. One thing that I came back fired up over are the unfinished projects I have running. So I intend to finish… Read More
Thanks for the link! Sciguy reports that Spain is about to give basic human rights to apes, something I have previously supported elsewhere. That is excellent news; I certainly hope the legislation goes through. If you haven’t seen it already you should definitely check out the Nature special “Chimpanzees: An Unnatural History,” too.
The comments on that SciGuy link are mostly so deeply stupid I’m left wondering how they mustered the basic literacy to post them. How does an intelligent poster attract a rabble like that?
I learned about Wimsatt’s book through your blog and the title made me take a look at it in Amazon. The description there made me think it might be interesting to read it, but if it’s being reviewed in American Scientist (and by Ruse), I’ll have the best reference possible.