Renaissance mathematicus 6 Aug 2009 I know I’ve been busy for a while now, but that’s no excuse for not having made more of our blog-friend Thony Christie’s new blog, Renaissance Mathematicus. Which is a real pity as he’s been doing some interesting pieces on the history of science. Since I’m such a slacker, go read Thony for a bit. History
History The founder of the history of ideas 18 Feb 2010 Gary Nelson has pointed me at this article on Arthur Lovejoy, the founder of the history of ideas movement that I count myself part of. It is an interesting take on what Lovejoy was doing, a kind of cultural evolution historiography. Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity The first use of a taxonomic tree 10 Apr 2009 Older histories of biology are often full of useful and interesting facts. One of my all-time favourites is Eric Nordenskiöld’s history, but I came across an earlier one by Louis Compton Miall in which I found this text: Bonnet in 1745 traced the scale of nature in fuller detail than… Read More
Evolution A review of Hitchens 9 Jul 2007 I probably agree with Christopher Hitchens on many substantive points. But I won’t be reading his book. Instead, we can thank this reviewer for their critical, ascerbic, and I suspect in the end accurate review of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Read More
This is really embarrassing, a glowing recommendation from the Aussie Anthropoid and another one from Will Thomas at Ether Wave Propaganda both on the same day! It’s a conspiracy isn’t it? Now if I could just work out the evil intentions behind…