The year in review 21 Dec 200718 Sep 2017 Philosophy isn’t one of those things that makes great breakthroughs that are recognised at the time. Generally something is thought of as a significant development much later, after it becomes obvious that people are engaging with it, like the Chinese Room of John Searle. So instead I will simply list my better posts of this year in a fit of self-aggrandisement. January Bioturbation and Darwin’s worms Another kind of agnosticism The man who invented evolution Species February Dads Darwin on species: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Science and nonscience Theory The many faces of “evolution” Introduction to the Philosophy of Biology The Procrastination Principle [More on procrastination] In praise of scientific ignorance – Claude Bernard Progress, Primitive and Advanced March Water and reduction The Myers Biological Song The topic of the evolution of religion Evolution and accident Allopatry and sympatry Linnaeus on species On myths about Darwin Darwin on the Irish Scientific realism and inference to the best explanation Instruction and information The mystery of mysteries – early naturalistic views of species origins [Whew – I must have been trying to evade some work that month] April On the incoherence of “Darwinism” A Very Bad Idea: Commenting on the VT tragedy Ancestors [Counting ancestors] Literary Darwinism On communication On secularism May Thoughts on history and science In praise of religious tolerance, even for atheists The Secret? Sympathetic magic Types, tokens, genera and species Happy Birthday Linnaeus Linnaeus on species The world according to Genesis: The cosmos June The world according to Genesis: Stuff that grows The world according to Genesis: Humanity Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds, Part 1, part 2, part 3 The world according to Genesis: Moral knowledge The world according to Genesis: Other peoples The world according to Genesis: The Flood The kangaroo is the first organism, but the fungus is not the biggest “Species” in the Stanford Encyclopedia updated The world according to Genesis: Language and society Lewes on heredity in 1856 July Explanation August What is an individual? Popper peeps papally at UD Tolerance and reason Are species theoretical objects? September Theories of speciation The meaning of “life” What is “life”, again? What is “life”, at last The constancy of change and the lack of balance October How not to Feyerabend What evolution is and what it is not (1897) Explaining religion Law, theory, or something else? Explaining religion 2: What is religion? Explaining religion 3: Is it adaptive? November Words and taxa Upstream issues Magnetic anomaly map finished (by guest blogger Chris Nedin) Animals and rights The library of the mind Birds up Explaining religion 4: Wolves and gods Species as objects of explanation Our inner ape The two Wilsons on sociobiology: Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 Physicists on science One more thing about Davies The philosophy of classification December Nationalism and evolution Virgin births A personal revelation Do bacteria think? A letter to a high school student Traditions in academe (theology departments) Taking drugs to enhance cognitive performance There you go. Some holiday reading, or rereading if you are one of the six who read this blog regularly. It’s not as sciencey as Catalogue of Organisms, or John Hawks Anthropology Weblog, or the wonderful Tetrapod Zoology, but it’s me. The real me. Confused and scattered… Administrative
Administrative 106 books meme 3 Oct 2007 I do these things to (a) impress you all (if I can), (b) get a crossbearing on whether I’m actually part of this culture I find myself inside of, and (c) see if there are any other books I ought to have read. Like my source, Live Granades, I bold… Read More
Administrative Lego me too! 12 Aug 200718 Sep 2017 I had to. They made me do it. Yes, I’m smoking again, but I’ll give up soon, I promise. The grumpy expression is because I’m teaching… Read More
Administrative Travel Diary 6 13 Oct 2009 Today I had a lovely time visiting Oxford University Press in the company of net-friend Mike Lyle and several of his philology friends. I checked that the OED has the right definitions of species (it’s not bad; I’ll send them a correction later), and then we went to a bookshop… Read More
Thanks John, it’s good to have all this in one spot. Easier to clean up. Just kidding. Have a Merry Christmas. I hope you get to spend time with your kids.
I personally think that your explication of Genesis from June is one of the finest workings of the topic I’ve ever seen, and some of the best writing of yours I know of. I’d love to see a “Wilkins interprets the Bible” sometime… I’d buy it, at least!