Verne Grant died 24 Aug 200718 Sep 2017 I’m very late to this, but one of the significant figures in the synthesis, Verne Grant, died in May. Grant’s book The Origin of Adaptations (1963) was one that influenced a lot of theorising about evolution. His essay on species concepts in 1957 pointed out that botanical notions of species had to be very different to the reigning Mayrian biospecies concept. Grant, Verne. 1957. The Plant Species in Theory and Practice. In The Species Problem, edited by E. Mayr. Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science. ———. 1963. The origin of adaptations. New York: Columbia University Press. Evolution History Species and systematics
History In defence of Keanu, and the 5th best scientist 28 Aug 2007 So they’re remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still? So what? I have more respect for Keanu Reeves after seeing the recent film A Scanner Darkly, and anyway he’s much better an actor than Will Ferrell, who did such a good job in Stranger than Fiction to my surprise. But… Read More
General Science Vitalism 17 Oct 2008 Melvyn Bragg, always an informed and interesting interviewer, has a podcast up from BBC Radio of an interview on the topic of vitalism in biology. Here the experts chosen are Patricia Fara, Fellow of Clare College and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge… Read More
Evolution Vagabonds in taxonomy 27 Jul 2008 A new genus name for water mites, from a recent paper in Zootaxa: Vagabundia comes from the Spanish word ‘vagabundo’ that means ‘wanderer’. It is a feminine substantive; sci refers to Science Citation Index. We pointed out some time ago (Valdecasas et al. 2000) that the popularity of the Science… Read More
I haven’t read the Origins of Adaptations for years, but Grant’s point about the difference between the way plants and animals evolve has shaped my thinking about evolution and, more generally, about science ever since I first encountered his book.