Understanding Species is here in hard copy 19 Apr 202319 Apr 2023 When I first watched Back to the future, I was mid-undergraduate studies, and had no thought that I would ever publish anything, but I was taken by Grispin Glover’s George McFly getting a box of what looked like 50 copies of his latest novel. The most I have ever gotten for any of my books was nine: things are less generous now than in the 80s, I guess. Also, academic books are orders of magnitude lower in numbers than commercial fiction. Still, the hard copies for any book are treasured, and thus I reveal to you: The interesting thing is that this is a compact size, around A5, which I guess is the thing now, what with Very Short Introductions to topics and so on. It’s still only £14.99/US$19.99, (AUS$28.95) so go get a copy. I think the price goes up in May. As a teaser, here’s a figure illustrating what different definitions of species do to our own species: Philosophy
Metaphysics Descartes before the horse – does information exist? 8 Mar 201122 Jun 2018 I have been kind of busy with actual, you know, work, which is ironic because I do not actually have, you know, employment. But I am teaching. Anyway this is by way of being an apology and apologia for not having posted lately. Be assured much Wilkinsy goodness is being… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Can an atheist have a code of ethics? 5 Dec 20115 Dec 2011 I posted this on Quora, but I thought I might put it here as well, and add a couple of things: A while back I gave a talk to a group of theologians on the question of Darwinian accidents. It had no ethics content. The first question I was asked… Read More
Epistemology The evolution of common sense on Scientific American 25 May 201125 May 2011 No, I do not mean that SciAm has finally evolved common sense, which would be an insult for the magazine that I grew up with. Instead quite the opposite: they have published a piece of mine on their Guest Blog on this topic. This indicates a growing lack of common… Read More