Education Early modern philosophy texts for students 16 Mar 2009 As you may have noticed, I am something of a Victorian – as well as being from that wonderful state, I also write as if I were a nineteenth century writer. It comes of reading too many of them over too long a period. I have little trouble when the… Read More
Evolution No, it’s not an ancestor either (probably) 19 May 200918 Sep 2017 In addition to the “missing link” trope that is being dished out about the new primate fossil, is another one, more subtle and insidious: it’s the ancestor of all primates. How do they know that? Consider a biologically realistic scenario: at the time there were probably hundreds of species of… Read More
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… Read More