Ten best species for the last year 23 May 2009 It’s fun to read, but what it means I am not sure. A bunch of systematists have devised the Top 10 New Species list for 2008. It’s basically a way to promote the need for more conservation and systematics at the species level, and that can’t be a bad thing: The list at the Institute for Species Exploration, centred at ASU, is here. However, I am particularly concerned at the choice of the coffee bean without caffeine. What’s next? Lauding a cacao bean without theobromine? This is just wrong, and they should have hidden the news altogether, lest it become the standard offering at coffee bars. Ecology and Biodiversity Humor Systematics
Biology What counts as “unique”? 25 Nov 2009 I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes something unique. Since Aristotle we have described something as unique if all its properties are special to it, but I don’t like property talk because I tend to think that it biases our thinking towards linguistic problems and solutions. I don’t… Read More
Epistemology Evolution quotes: The English and theories 11 Dec 2012 ‘What I really like about the English is that they don’t have theories. No Englishman would ever have said, “I think, therefore I am.” Although possibly he might have said, “I think, therefore I am, I think.”‘ [Solomon, from Dodger, by Terry Pratchett, p219] Read More
Evolution The Myth of Ascent 18 Aug 2009 Skeptic Wonders has a really neat article on the myth of evolutionary ascent that you all should go look at. Read More
A caffeine-free coffee bean might be economically useful – for producing a never-caffeinated subsitute for decaffeinated coffee.