Reductionism article 27 May 2008 Two of my favourite philosophers, Ingo Brigandt and Alan Love, have just published an extremely useful and relatively complete summary essay on “Reductionism in Biology” at the Stanford Encyclopedia. They clearly identify the issues and confusions, which is what an encyclopedia article ought to do. If I have a criticism, it is that they do not attend, as most modern philosophy doesn’t, to the nineteenth century origins of this debate. I mean not only Mill, but Whewell, Jevons and all those who debated the relationship between scientific theories. Those who began the twentieth century debate knew that literature well. But then the nineteenth century is my milieu, so much so that I sometimes think I should retitle this blog Fin de Siecle Thoughts. Evolution
Administrative Talkorigins.org back up 12 Jan 2009 The website www.talkorigins.org is now back up, although links to the temporary archive www.toarchive.org/ still work for now. The story is roughly this – the company (joker.com) we bought the domain name from reassigned the IP number for the site as part of changing their data centre. They apparently sent… Read More
Book That’s not an Origin of Species; *this* is an Origin of Species 24 Sep 2009 I would strongly suggest that if you find Kirk Cameron’s “edition” of the Origin of Species that you quietly dispose of it in an environmentally conscious manner. However, if you want a good edition, I recommend this one by Jim Endersby, a well known historian of the nineteenth century, from… Read More
Evolution Christianity Today = Inanity Today? 29 Aug 2007 Oh honestly. Christianity Today reports the travel of the Australopithecine fossil “Lucy” to the US with the closing paragraph: It should be interesting to see what the interest in Lucy is, given that according to opinion polls roughly half of the American public has expressed serious reservations about the theory… Read More
Criticism at Evolving Thoughts is good, but criticism at the discussion thread on the “Reductionism in Biology” SEP entry is even better. Alan Love and I set up this discussion thread at the Philosophy of Biology Cafe to gather feedback on our SEP entry, which we will consider when we revise the article the next time. Your suggestion is quite relevant (and pertains to our section 2). May I ask that you repost it at the discussion thread, so that we can keep track of who made particular suggestions. And everyone else is encouraged to comment at the discussion thread on our SEP entry!
If I had sufficient data or knowledge to do so, I would. But displaying my ignorance is what this blog is for… I’ll keep a record of what I encounter, and let you guys know on that thread. For a start, though, obviously Mill’s System is a place to delve.