Evolution Religion and Tolerance 21 Jul 2010 The video from the Religion and Toleration conference I attended is now online (details below the fold). Continue Reading
Evolution Creation, a personal reflection on the movie 18 Jul 201022 Jun 2018 I just saw the movie Creation, with Paul Bettany as Darwin and Jennifer Connelly (Bettany’s real life wife) as Emma Darwin. And I am very pleasantly surprised how well it worked as a film, as well as how effectively it represented the era. My quibbles are just that, quibbles. Mostly,… Continue Reading
Biology Names and nomenclature in classification 17 Jul 2010 One of the main focuses in the literature, especially in biology, regarding classification is the problem of nomenclature, of names. Many treat classification as being all about names, an error that is akin to mistaking not the map for the territory, but the names on the map for the territory…. Continue Reading
Evolution Evolution Quote 13 Jul 2010 Q. Speaking of islands, when an apelike fossil was discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, a great controversy broke out among anthropologists. Some said this three-foot tall small- brained creature was a new species of hominid — a humanlike primate. Others claimed it was an early human… Continue Reading
Biology Last year in Lisbon… 13 Jul 2010 I attended an excellent conference organised by the wonderful Nathalie Gontier at the Faculdade de Ciências of the Universidade de Lisboa, in April last year. Now, the proceedings has been published in a special issue of Theory in Biosciences here. These are the contents: Double Special Issue: Darwin evaluated by… Continue Reading
Education Darwinism, Philosophy and Society 7 Jul 2010 I’m teaching, for the first time, this subject in the final semester for this year (we have a three semester structure in defiance of all etymology), and as you might expect I’m pretty au fait with it all, except for one: Darwinism and literature. Now, we’re using the Appleman volume… Continue Reading
Evolution Cultural evolution essay 6 Jul 2010 At On The Human there’s an essay by Bill Benzon, a friend and colleague of mine, on cultural evolution: “Cultural Evolution: A Vehicle For Cooperative Interaction Between The Sciences And The Humanities”. It’s open to informed and moderated comments in what they cutely call a Sympoze. One of the comments… Continue Reading
Biology Alienus a me puto 5 Jul 2010 I have mentioned Terence’s line Homo sum: nihil humani a me alienum puto before. It is a declaration that all that is human is not foreign to me. But there are aliens, or we suppose on reasonable grounds that there are, and Stephen Hawking thinks we should not engage them,… Continue Reading
Biology My latest paper 4 Jul 2010 I have just had a paper published: “What is a species? Essences and generation” Theory in Biosciences Volume 129, Numbers 2-3 / September, 2010. Pages 141-148 . DOI 10.1007/s12064-010-0090-z Abstract: Arguments against essentialism in biology rely strongly on a claim that modern biology abandoned Aristotle’s notion of a species as… Continue Reading
Creationism and Intelligent Design Consequences of theistic evolution 3 Jul 201022 Jun 2018 So in parts one and two I proposed a problem and solution to the reconciliation of a limited theism with science, and in particular evolution. The aim was to preserve a complete scientific explanation, with no constraints or hedging or intervention, and to see if it could be made consistent… Continue Reading