The ontology of biology – interlude and podcast 5 Dec 2008 The General Ecosystems Thinking (GET) Group centred at Queensland University of Technology (or as we at UQ like to call it, the “city university”) invited me to come give a talk on the ontology of evolution. I gave it yesterday. As it will be part of this series of posts that will end up as some form of publication, I thought you might like to hear my dulcet and husky tones, and read the incredible slide. If so, go here, or get the PDF slides here and the WMA sound here. Check out some of the other speakers too. Thanks to Marco Fahmi for the invite and shepherding. The actual title was: “Species, Traditions and Corporations: What is it that evolves?” As I was talking to a variety of disciplines, I made it incoherent in all of them rather than just the one. I can do that, you know… Evolution Social evolution Species and systematics
Administrative My present work 10 Oct 2010 Life can be … interesting, for Chinese values thereof. No, I don’t mean the Nobel Prize, although good choice. I mean that I’m presently undergoing some kind of curse. I think it’s called “work” . Work!? So what I’m doing doesn’t translate to meaningful blog posts. Not always (but eventually,… Read More
Evolution Not the end of evolution again! 6 Oct 2008 I get so tired of comments like this: The Grim Reaper is taking a rest, and inherited differences in the ability to withstand cold, starvation or disease no longer power Darwin’s machine. Those who die from such killers do so when they are so old that natural selection has lost… Read More
Education Ruminations in Oxford 19 May 2010 The conference proceeds apace. I have met some very nice and interesting people: Pat Churchland, Owen Flanagan, Ara Norenzayan, whose paper I ineffectually commented upon, Robin Dunbar, Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, Tony Coady, Janet Radcliffe-Richards, and a number of people who I previously knew but am pleased to reacquaint myself with. One… Read More
Bob: under the Eigen and Schuster approach, there are exponential growth rates in non-malthusian reactors, but under the assumptions I was positing the growth rates are indeed hyperbolic. See this PDF paper, for example, page 2, and refs. Universal Darwinism, in the Dawkins sense, is indeed epistemic, but there’s a confusion in thinking that because we can call something informational, that information is causal, which is what I was trying to get across. Information is only causal when it is interpreted by an information processing system.
Minor nitpick: hyperbolic != exponential. Non-Malthusian growth is exponential (or geometric in discrete time).
Minor nitpick: hyperbolic != exponential. Non-Malthusian growth is exponential (or geometric in discrete time).
Minor nitpick: hyperbolic != exponential. Non-Malthusian growth is exponential (or geometric in discrete time).
Now I’ve listened to all of it, I think I’ll need to read the book: there’s a lot in there which is fascinating, but I’d need to mull it over and see how it works with a couple of examples. I hope you’re not lynched by molecular taxonomists before you’ve finished writing it (I’m sure they’ll point out that they should effing well know what a pseudogene looks like!). One thing I couldn’t get/missed was where the phenotype appears in your story. If there is evolution, we see it as much in change of the phenotype, but you didn’t seem to talk about its status: there has to be something causing differential survival, or to be a spandrelpedantive.
Now I’ve listened to all of it, I think I’ll need to read the book: there’s a lot in there which is fascinating, but I’d need to mull it over and see how it works with a couple of examples. I hope you’re not lynched by molecular taxonomists before you’ve finished writing it (I’m sure they’ll point out that they should effing well know what a pseudogene looks like!). One thing I couldn’t get/missed was where the phenotype appears in your story. If there is evolution, we see it as much in change of the phenotype, but you didn’t seem to talk about its status: there has to be something causing differential survival, or to be a spandrelpedantive.
Now I’ve listened to all of it, I think I’ll need to read the book: there’s a lot in there which is fascinating, but I’d need to mull it over and see how it works with a couple of examples. I hope you’re not lynched by molecular taxonomists before you’ve finished writing it (I’m sure they’ll point out that they should effing well know what a pseudogene looks like!). One thing I couldn’t get/missed was where the phenotype appears in your story. If there is evolution, we see it as much in change of the phenotype, but you didn’t seem to talk about its status: there has to be something causing differential survival, or to be a spandrelpedantive.
Yeah, you know… metaphysical poet. They’re all alike 🙂 Actually, “To his coy mistress” is one of my favourite pieces. “But at my back I alwais hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”
Slide 24 attributes “vegetable love” to Donne; didn’t you mean Andrew Marvell (“To His Coy Mistress”)? My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires, and more slow. An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. Or perhaps you were thinking of Donne’s “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day”? Were I a man, that I were one I needs must know; I should prefer, If I were any beast, Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest, And love; all, all some properties invest…. I’ve been puzzling my brain and looking vain for Donne on vegetable love.