Ooh, cool! 23 Apr 2009 “Few topics have engaged biologists and philosophers more than the concept of species, and arguably no idea is more important for evolutionary science. John S. Wilkins’ book combines meticulous historical and philosophical analysis and thus provides new insights on the development of this most enduring of subjects.”—Joel Cracraft, American Museum of Natural History “This is not the potted history that one usually finds in texts and review articles. It is a fresh look at the history of a field central to biology, but one whose centrality has changed in scope over the centuries. Wilkins’ book will be a standard source for all kinds of people working in systematics. There is not another book on the subject, amazingly enough, and his perspective is so comprehensive and well-taught that it will replace any standard review articles and older histories.”—Kevin Padian, University of California, Berkeley From here… due 9 August! Administrative Book Species and systematics
Evolution Contingency, not-quite-asexuals, and phylogeny of continuous characters 4 Jun 2008 This is a kind of scattered post on a few things that have caught my eye, while I am avoiding boring work. Paeloblog reports that a paper in Nature has done a phylogeny on continuous rather than discrete characters, using morphometric criteria to do a hominin phylogeny. This is not… Read More
Administrative Off to the wilds of Oxfordshire 14 May 2010 So, tomorrow I fly to Oxford (well, to Heathrow, and bus to Oxford) to this conference on religion and toleration. It looks to be an interesting conference, and I am commenting on a paper by one of my favourite anthropologist/psychologists, Ara Norenzayan from UBC. It includes such luminaries as Amartya… Read More
Administrative Test post 12 Jul 2010 WordPress and ecto are not talking to each other Okay, maybe they are, but ecto is confused and thinks it’s posting to somewhere else. Damn. I lost the folds. Read More
I look forward to getting it and hopefully having a book that talks about the species concepts and I don’t want to use it to start fires…
Wow! Cracking reviews! Hopefully, this is where all that hard work and sacrifice finally pays off. What next? A TV series along the lines of The Ascent Of Man?
Wow! Cracking reviews! Hopefully, this is where all that hard work and sacrifice finally pays off. What next? A TV series along the lines of The Ascent Of Man?
Am really looking forward to this book. I don’t know if this is normal behaviour, but back as an undergrad my mate and I used to spend hours at the pub debating species concepts.. Of course, beer always won.
Am really looking forward to this book. I don’t know if this is normal behaviour, but back as an undergrad my mate and I used to spend hours at the pub debating species concepts.. Of course, beer always won.
Looking great! Of course, the world being like it is, maybe there are people who only want the potted history and are adamantly opposed to new insights; now they’ll all avoid reading you….
How much do you have to pay for a review like that? Posted by: Susan Silberstein | April 24, 2009 5:25 PM John, you have a collection of mean, sneaky, vindictive, iniquitous and despicable commentators on your blog and I am really pissed off with Ms Silberstein for having got there first! I wanted to say that ;(
Congrats! A positive selection indeed, with excellent reviews (now I know why I never read any fashionable critiques of the NCSE here).
Congratulations John! Have a deep fried Sardine and a really strong Portuguese espresso from me. Having seen you pour your heart and soul into that book, doggedly pursing it in the face of adversity, I can say that review is well earned. Congratulations again!
Congratulations John! Have a deep fried Sardine and a really strong Portuguese espresso from me. Having seen you pour your heart and soul into that book, doggedly pursing it in the face of adversity, I can say that review is well earned. Congratulations again!
Congratulations John! Have a deep fried Sardine and a really strong Portuguese espresso from me. Having seen you pour your heart and soul into that book, doggedly pursing it in the face of adversity, I can say that review is well earned. Congratulations again!