The Velvet Underground of… 8 Oct 2010 Recently there have been a couple of “Velvet Underground” posts, of the kind that the VU were a very unknown but amazingly influential group. As Chad Orzel says, “only of order a thousand people bought the first Velvet Underground record, but every one of them went on to start a band.” He identifies the VU of physics as Sadi Carnot. Larry Moran identifies Max Delbrück as the VU of molecular genetics (and a great choice it is too). But this is a meme! We can uselessly pass this on! Who are the VUs of other disciplines and topics? I’m going to identify Otto Neurath as the VU of the philosophy of science. Do you have a VU? Biology General Science History Humor Philosophy Science HistoryPhilosophy
General Science Watch Wilkins from Space 14 Dec 2008 The Wilkins Ice Shelf, of course. The European Space Agency has a “satcam” up for you to see how it’s going. Read More
Epistemology Two kinds of natural classification, and hybrid classifications 11 Aug 2010 It is fairly clear to anyone reading the last century’s discussions about classification that there are, with respect to natural classification, two main approaches. These are roughly: classification based on shared causal properties, and classification based upon shared phenomenal properties. In the debates between the “pheneticists” who used computer-based techniques… Read More
What’s the difference between being aVU of x and being an xer’s xer? I want to see some serious conceptual analysis here.
I just wanted to say that Max Delbrück seems like a character from either a Mel Brooks or Steve Martin movie.