New evolutionary blogger 27 Oct 2009 Sean Stan Rice, an evolutionary biologist at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, has started a blog: Honest-Ab (which he has named after a weed he once used in experiments; not noticing that it is named also after Theophrastus, Aristotle’s student who founded botany). Put it in your reader and watch it. Rice is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Evolution, so he may be presumed to know a thing or two… Evolution
Cognition 50 words for snow 3: what are phenomena? 27 Sep 20171 Mar 2019 Series Conceptual confusion The economics of cultural categories What are phenomena? What counts as sociocultural? Species Constructing phenomena Explanations and phenomena If experienced observers are trained to observe natural phenomena in their environment, pace the “interference” of cultural accidents, what is it they observe? As I mentioned before, we are not… Read More
Evolution The value of the history of science 4 Aug 20084 Oct 2017 My Sciblings Bora, John, Brian and Benjamin have asked what the value of the history of science is to scientists. Below the fold is my apologia for writing a stonking great history of a scientific concept (species, in case the sidebar wasn’t enough hint), in which I defend the worth… Read More
Biology The difference between philosophy and biology 6 Jun 2010 Robert Paul Wolf continues his fascinating, and dare I say name-naming and body-locating, autobiobiographical memoirs of the academy and his place in it. In the latest episode he mentions Ed Wilson, the famous ant specialist, sociobiologist, and promoter of science. Brian Leiter cites the passage in which Wolf has a… Read More