Travel and stuff 30 Jul 20074 Oct 2017 So the ISHPSSB Conference is done, and here I sit in the University of Exeter Library getting some internetting done for the first time in a week. Great conference. I got to meet Scibling John Lynch and his colleagues and drink much beer of various UK kinds. I got to meet Massimo Pigliucci and his colleague Jon Kaplan (I had met Jon earlier). And a host of other names who mean a lot more to me than to you. My talk denying Essentialism ever existed went down as well as a 20 minute presentation of a 300 page argument can, with historian Jon Hodge chatting to me enthusiastically over the rest of the day, while we had a Devonshire Tea (when in Rome…) at our host, John Dupré‘s home. Then more beer and the best Indian meal I’ve ever had (Ganges Restaurant, if you’re in town). Enough name dropping. That’s what conferences are for. A blog that has long been moribund – by Sahotra Sarkar – has been reactivated to deal with the recent election of creationists to the Texas school board. Sahotra has a recent book out on ID, too. Another day spent here in sunny (for the moment) England and then to home, to teach, perchance to dream… Administrative
Administrative On blogging while tenure tracking 20 Jul 2008 John Hawks has an excellent essay up (I don’t know how correct it is, never having been on a tenure track) on the merits and problems of being an academic blogger. Do read it. Read More
Administrative How to hijack a thread 11 Dec 2008 From Almost Diamonds, by Stephanie Zvan, comes a description of many of my favourite trolls, including the one who won’t take “you’re banned” as an answer. This is why he’s banned. Read More
Administrative Oops 10 Jun 2011 Rule number 1 when doing a large scale edit to a blog: turn off all automatic notifications. If you got a request to join Gravatar just now, or you saw a slew of notifications of old posts on Twitter or Facebook, my bad. I’m importing all the old posts from… Read More
Sahotra has a recent book out on ID, too. I read it, liked it (mostly) and noted a number of references to one antipodian philosopher. I thought his explanation of what he called “the central argument” of ID was particularly helpful. I keep meaning to do a review.
I have been lucky enough to visit the Ganges myself, an unforgettable curry, although it did stem my Ale intake for the rest of the night – it was worth it.