Wilkins on screen 10 Nov 2009 Proving that I have a great face for radio, you can see the second (but not for some reason, the first) of two video interviews (vlogs) that I did for NYC Atheists recently. There’s a really good shot of my right shoulder giving a talk about one third of the way in. Creationism and Intelligent Design Evolution History Humor Philosophy Science Species and systematics Species concept
Epistemology Was Jesus a philosopher? 9 May 2010 A local philosophy mailing list has announced a talk being given by a philosophically inclined plumber on Jesus’ philosophy. This rather begs the question* that he was indeed a philosopher. Jesus certainly held ethical principles and taught doctrines, but that is insufficient to make someone a philosopher. Many people have… Read More
Evolution Mill on Kinds and Types 14 Mar 200918 Sep 2017 A while back I excerpted some Whewell on classification by types. Here is John Stuart Mill disagreeing with him, and, I think, starting off the modern literature on natural kinds. Read More
Ecology and Biodiversity Liveblogging the conference: Roberta Millstein 14 Mar 2008 Roberta is a great philosopher from UC Davis and she’s talking about the notion of populations. Read More
I wish I had known you gave a lecture at Oxford. I would have made the effort to come down. Still surprises me how I can use some of the ideas developed and apply them directly to art. It does not seem natural! But would seem that it is.
Oops, wishfull thinking on my part. Would have liked to drag a few postmodernists along from history and English lit. from that neck of the woods to hear you speak. I am sure I could get some heated family debates out of it for some time to come.
Personally, I love intentional language in biology. I find it very tiresome when people challenge me and ask me to spell out what I mean when I use terms like “want” or “for”. In fact, their usual tack is to claim that I am making a stupid anthropomorphic error. This soon gets tedious – but it is not bad enough to make me go for the long-winded option of spelling out what I mean explicitly every time.
Hey, how come when I click on that link, it says “Access denied, lowly scut. You are not authorized to access this page!” ? (or something like that). I sense CONSPIRACY!!
I watched the video the other day. But I just tried to watch it again, because I probably missed some things, and now I’m denied access. Anyway, from what I remember it was very interesting and also clarified a number of confusing points. You talked about Haeckel, so I’ll mention that I saw a collection of Haeckel’s artwork when I was shopping for a 2010 wall calendar the other week. There were lots of calendars to choose from and I didn’t choose that one, but I recognised the images.
Actually, I thought you came across very well. You looked relaxed. You spoke easily and without stumbling or hesitation and gave the impression you had mastered your subject. Above all, there was enough inflexion in your delivery to make it easy on the ear. They should invite you on to BloggingHeads to debate someone like Michael Flannery on his thesis that Darwin’s notebooks reveal a very different and less praiseworthy character than the public persona.