Obit: Chris Humphries 18 Aug 2009 The Telegraph in the UK has an obituary for Chris Humphries, the botanist and systematist who died recently. Humphries was also a major player in the use of biogeography for conservation. Biology Ecology and Biodiversity Species and systematics Systematics
Biology Teleology as a mistress 9 Sep 2009 Okay, this is bugging me so I’m going to crowdsource it. Who first wrote this: Teleology is a mistress without whom no biologist can live, but with whom none wishes to be seen in public? There are many versions of this, ascribed variously to J. B. S. Haldane, Frits Went,… Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity On speciation 26 Jun 200922 Jun 2018 The Atavism has some thoughts on speciation in response to a high school teacher’s query. He uses the following nice diagram to indicate what some of the core species definitions mean: It’s neat, and therefore… wrong. By which I mean that given the rule that biological organisms do what they… Read More
Epistemology Bayes, evolutionary clocks, and biogeography 30 Mar 20122 Apr 2012 I just received a review by Gareth Nelson of Michael Heads’ book Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics (publishers’ site). I should have blogged this before, since I got a copy, being on the editorial board for this series (the same one I published with at Uni Calif Press), but I have… Read More
To all readers, Chris was very accommodating person, and he is very knowledgeable specially on biology. he may rest in peace, my condolonces to the family. Dholor