Some more reading 21 Jul 2009 While I compose my haiku philosophical masterpieces, read these links: Douglas Kell gives an account of the problems of reverse engineering biochemical networks in biology here. It’s not just a matter of curve fitting to data. Thinking is Real gives a fair discussion of the debate between meself and PZ Marlargl on accommodationism. The Boston Globe reports on apparent racial profiling of African American academics at Harvard. Some University of Iowa rediscover that the nature-nurture distinction is without merit. Dispersal of Darwin has an account of some leading historians of biology meeting in Cambridge. This is a series, in which Dan Dennett, among others, makes an appearance. And surprise, surprise, creationists lie in order to misrepresent historians again in another creationist propaganda piece. Biology Creationism and Intelligent Design Genetics Race and politics Religion
Biology Social dominance psychology in humans 2 Jul 200922 Jun 2018 There is a syllogism I call the Phylogenetic Inference: All members of clade X are F Species S is a member of clade X S is F It’s not infallible, but it is a good inductive rule, because monophyly acts as a kind of Straight Rule for biological induction. Let’s… Read More
Censorship I told you so 24 Oct 2008 I told you so 1: High cost of internet filtering and controls stricter than Iran’s, oh and critics bullied. I told you so 2: Terrorism laws unsafe, court rejects charge of breaking laws that did not exist when the “crime” was done Read More
Evolution Species, framing, and stuff 24 Mar 2008 So here’s a neo-Thomist talking about species, and not getting it due to (i) prior metaphysical commitments, and (ii) not understanding Aristotle – dude, he never called anything a species, not in the biological sense. Eidos and genos were just ordinary words he coopted for the Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics…. Read More
Now you’ve gone and done it. Larry has picked up on that article on accommodationism (by “fair,” I assume you meant something halfway between “good” and “bad”*) and will now cite your endorsement of it as proof that accommodationism is anti-science. * Kidding aside, did you really think that was a fair assessment of the accommodationist side of the argument?