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
Cognition Evolution Quotes: Quine on evolving similarity 16 Aug 2012 A sense of comparative similarity, I remarked earlier, is one of man’s animal endowments. Insofar as it fits in with regularities of nature, so as to afford us reasonable success in our primitive inductions and expectations, it is presumably an evolutionary product of natural selection. Secondly, as remarked, one’s sense… Read More
Biology The second in the series “Species and Systematics” 1 Aug 2009 Readers know my book is the first cab off the rank known as “Species and Systematics” at the University of California Press. It was too good to last that I would be the only one. Now Parenti and Ebach have published their Comparative Biogeography as the second volume. They have… Read More
Biology Johnson on instinct 16 Nov 2009 “We do not know in what either reason or instinct consists, and therefore cannot tell with exactness how they differ; but surely he that contemplates a ship and a bird’s nest will not be long without finding out that the idea of the one was impressed at once, and continued… 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.