Book Scientist’s Operating Manual – Evidence; gathering, measuring, analysing 7 Oct 2010 In this chapter we will look at how science gathers information about the world, and what it does with it. [Contributors should write their bits in the comments, and I will collate them below the fold or in new posts. By the way, contributors will be named unless they don’t… Continue Reading
Biology Some loose ends – Reductionism and Phylocode 26 Aug 201018 Sep 2017 I’ve been asked in the comments to cover two topics, neither of which I want to discuss at length because they are not easy to cover, and because they aren’t the focus of my rather intense monomania right now. They are: Reductionism and Phylocode. Continue Reading
Epistemology Two kinds of natural classification, and hybrid classifications 11 Aug 2010 It is fairly clear to anyone reading the last century’s discussions about classification that there are, with respect to natural classification, two main approaches. These are roughly: classification based on shared causal properties, and classification based upon shared phenomenal properties. In the debates between the “pheneticists” who used computer-based techniques… Continue Reading
Epistemology Dynamics and classification redux 7 Aug 2010 In my last two posts in this series, I suggested that science is a field of possible moments, with no set trajectory over what I called the “dance floor of science”. Some commentators have objected to this, arguing that there is no real difference between classification and theory building. I… Continue Reading
Epistemology Natural classification and the dynamics of science 6 Aug 201018 Sep 2017 About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not to theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel pit and count the pebbles and describe their colours. How odd it is… Continue Reading
Biology Alienus a me puto 5 Jul 2010 I have mentioned Terence’s line Homo sum: nihil humani a me alienum puto before. It is a declaration that all that is human is not foreign to me. But there are aliens, or we suppose on reasonable grounds that there are, and Stephen Hawking thinks we should not engage them,… Continue Reading
Evolution Prichard on species 9 Jun 2010 Here’s a nice and interesting discussion on how species was seen well before Darwin, which is effectively a “biological”, that is to say, reproductive isolation species conception. It’s by James Prichard, an anthropologist, and published in the second edition of Prichard, James Cowles (1845), The natural history of man; Comprising… Continue Reading
Metaphysics P-Angels 28 May 2010 There is a class of beings called P-Zeds, which are not unspellable atheist bloggers, but “philosophical zombies”, beings exactly like us in every way, but which lack consciousness. A P-Zed behaves just like you and I, and is identical at the physical level, but it has no self-awareness, reflexivity or… Continue Reading
Epistemology Ruminations after Oxford 21 May 2010 So, it is a day or so after the final conference day, and I am now in Maidenhead, in Windsorshire (did I get that right?), next door to some head of state’s home. I visited Louis Constandinos (now there’s a name that has relevance to religion!), a chemist who reads… Continue Reading
Education Ruminations in Oxford 19 May 2010 The conference proceeds apace. I have met some very nice and interesting people: Pat Churchland, Owen Flanagan, Ara Norenzayan, whose paper I ineffectually commented upon, Robin Dunbar, Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Tony Coady, Janet Radcliffe-Richards, and a number of people who I previously knew but am pleased to reacquaint myself with. One… Continue Reading