Teeth and a marsupial lion 16 May 2009 Chris Nedin has another post of great interest (even if it is for a late period, the Pleistocene) which goes into my file of “the older naturalists were great observers”, as he shows how modern chemistry supports Richard Owens’ diagnosis of Thylacoleo as a carnivore, even though it is in a clade of herbivores. Evolution Species and systematics
Evolution A good German site 4 Apr 2008 Evilunderthesun is a German language blog that recently did two things: totally demolished the “Nazism was caused by Darwin” trope, with generous quoting of mich, and educated me that the word for April fool in German is Aprilschmerz, which I really like. Tometheus (Prometheus’ and Epimetheus’ little brother, responsible for… Read More
Species and systematics Some more of Whewell on classification 25 Feb 200918 Sep 2017 This is a kind of note to myself, an aide memoire to remind me of the fact that much of the modern narrative about classification in biology before Darwin is not correct. It’s also interesting that Whewell defines systematics, but most interesting is the reinforcement of the prior note that… Read More
Cognition 50 words for snow 5; species 15 Oct 20171 Mar 2019 Series Conceptual confusion The economics of cultural categories What are phenomena? What counts as sociocultural? Species Constructing phenomena Explanations and phenomena All classificatory terms are impossible of exact definition. Their use always has and always will depend upon the consensus of opinion of those best qualified by wisdom, experience and… Read More
‘Prerogative of harlots’ has a nice additional story: http://paleocoll.blogspot.com/2009/05/cool.html