Species: The evolution of the idea 12 Oct 2017 My revised book is now titled Species: The evolution of the idea, and now contains a philosophy section as well as a complete list of species concept[ion]s and an appendix of all taxonomic levels I could locate. It is due out in February 2018 from CRC Press. I have done a complete revision of all sections and gone back to the sources for checking and added a slew of new citations. There’s some new history as well. I fixed all the mistakes of the first edition I could find or which were pointed out to me, pointedly. Keep an eye out for the announcement of the publication details. At the moment, the book page at CRC Press is a placeholder. Also keep an eye out for Brent Mishler’s book What are species? due in March. Biology Ecology and Biodiversity Evolution Genetics History Natural Classification Philosophy Science Species and systematics Species concept Systematics
Evolution Gods above 6 Jul 200922 Jun 2018 It’s no real coincidence that the standard metaphor for approaching gods is one of height. Humans not only defer to those who are “above” them in the social hierarchy, they also tend to defer to people who are literally taller than they are. Taller individuals tend to have higher status… Read More
Epistemology The nature of philosophy and its role in modern society 6 Feb 2011 Those who spend their days obsessively noting every little change in blog designs will note that I have added a big red “P” at the bottom left. This links to the Philosophy Campaign – an attempt to make philosophy more relevant to modern society. So I got to thinking… what… Read More
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