Epistemology The mind of other species 16 Dec 2010 Jacob von Uexküll was an Estonian biologist, who among other things coined the term “Umwelt” to denote the sensory and cognitive world of a particular species. The idea has been unjustly ignored by philosophers of biology, in part because it was enthusiastically taken up by semioticians instead, in part because… Continue Reading
Creationism and Intelligent Design Evolution and its rivals – special issue of Synthese 16 Dec 2010 A special issue of the philosophical journal Synthese covers the topic “Evolution and its rivals”. It is open access until the end of this month, so you can get the papers now. The major discussions centre around intelligent design, which is the nearest to intellectual adequacy that creationism gets. There… Continue Reading
Evolution Darwin’s motivation 5 Dec 2010 For some time now I have been convinced that Darwin’s original and most pressing problem was not adaptation. It was the existence of taxonomic diversity. I have thought that the debates over what was a natural classification amongst the unjustly derided Quinarians William Sharp Macleay and William Swainson were the… Continue Reading
Biology More on David Hull 4 Dec 20104 Oct 2017 There’s a special issue of Biology and Philosophy in the wings on the late David Hull. So far, the editorial introduction by Kim Sterelny and a fair summary of his work by Peter Godfrey-Smith have appeared Online First. Springer appear to be making these open access. Update: Michael Ruse’s memoir… Continue Reading
Biology Arsenic and the life extraterrestrial 3 Dec 201022 Jun 2018 Paul Z. Myers, a little known biologist from Minnesota has published a lovely debunking of the hype surrounding the “second life” announcement from NASA. He should do more science-related posts. He’s really good at them. Here are some other excellent pieces: Bytesized Biology, Leaf Warbler, Greg Laden; Wired; and Ed… Continue Reading
Evolution Evolution in films 11 Nov 2010 OK, I’m giving a lecture on evolution in films. So far I have these: THEM! Godzilla, King of the Monsters King Kong The Time Machine X-Men Fantasia 2001 a space odyssey Mission To Mars Evolution Avatar Ice Age 3 – Dawn of the Dinosaurs Jurassic Park Destroy All Monsters Lost… Continue Reading
Academe David Hull is dead 6 Nov 2010 Updated to include new links… My mentor, hero and I hope friend, David Lee Hull died on the morning of 11 August 2010, at the age of 75. If not for the fact that David marked my masters thesis and remarked that he hoped to see some of it published,… Continue Reading
Evolution New Carnival of Evolution 2 Nov 2010 Click on the button to go read lots of evolving goodness. Continue Reading
Evolution Things Glenn Beck has never seen 24 Oct 2010 A DNA sequence Comparative anatomical diagrams Behavioural studies of apes and humans compared Psychological studies of apes and human children Fossils A science book His arse Continue Reading
Epistemology How many species concepts are there? 20 Oct 2010 [Note: This is a piece I wrote for Grrlscientist’s blog at the Guardian, Punctuated Equilibrium. I post it here for purposes of record. Please make comments at Grrl’s blog.] It’s an old question in biology: what is a species? Many answers have been given over the years – I counted… Continue Reading