Wilkins on Wilkins on The Galilean Library 15 Apr 2008 In an amazing display of misjudgment, Paul Newall of the (otherwise) excellent site The Galilean Library has interviewed me about my views on the philosophy of biology. There are some serious folk interviewed there, so of course I feel like a fraud, but hey, you all know I love the “sound” of my own voice. There’s also a lot of interesting material there for those who want to know more about the history and philosophy of science, and history and philosophy in general. Go visit it even if you don’t want to hear more of your favorite silverback. Evolution General Science History
Biology Rise of the Planet of the Moralists 2: chains and trees 18 Oct 201122 Jun 2018 Rise of the Planet of the Moralists Series1: Introduction2: Chains and Trees 3: Clades and grades4: Predicting traits5: Social dominance and power Very famously, Darwin came up with the idea of the evolutionary tree. What is not often realized is that it is the tree that is more uniquely Darwin’s than natural selection, for which… Read More
Evolution PZ is a God Botherer 12 Oct 2009 Now I just knew PZ Myers was an accommodationist. But I didn’t know he went this far… [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Clm6nlWxzc&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1] [From Taking bad acting to new troughs [Pharyngula]] Read More
History Quote: Nominalism 16 Feb 201216 Feb 2012 Nominalism has often been misunderstood in the past, perhaps because of the associations of the word itself. Properly conceived, nominalism has nothing to do with names. It is, quite precisely, the thesis that everything which exists is an individual, and is moreover an individual in itself, and not merely as a… Read More
Terrific interview – gives me a much clearer idea of where you’re coming from than I had before. I had to laugh when I read about “protein and functional molecular philosophy”, though. Is there nothing philosophers won’t philosoph about?
Terrific interview – gives me a much clearer idea of where you’re coming from than I had before. I had to laugh when I read about “protein and functional molecular philosophy”, though. Is there nothing philosophers won’t philosoph about?
Terrific interview – gives me a much clearer idea of where you’re coming from than I had before. I had to laugh when I read about “protein and functional molecular philosophy”, though. Is there nothing philosophers won’t philosoph about?
We will philosoph for money on any topic. We’re just whores for ideas. Proteins and functional biology raise some interesting problems – is functionality a natural kind concept or is it something contingent? Some properties of molecules must be universal due to the properties of weak and strong forces, structure, etc. Others must rely on their context, so that what does a task in one taxon might do a distinct job in another (see the discussion on “core genomes” in my Microbial Species paper in HPLS). So something is both a natural kind and not a natural kind at some level, depending? How can that not be interesting to ask?
I’m a regular reader of your blog but with this interview I’ve become your fan! Many times while reading your responses and explanations in the interview, the proverbial imaginary lightbulb went on over my head and I had to say “Ah-ha!”. As a molecular biologist, during graduate school I often had long discussions with my lab mates about the nature of the gene and how there is no all-purpose satisfactory definition. Also, during a postdoctoral stay, one of my bosses and I would have friendly debates about what a bacterial species meant in light of how often bacteria exchange genetic information and how it’s common that bacteria that are phenotipically clasified into the same species can be very different regarding the genes they posess. I’ll eagerly await your book!
Oh, so you’re not the John *M* Wilkins who is the co-author of the book I am reading, “Food in the Ancient World”. There seem to be so many John Wilkinses.
Oh, so you’re not the John *M* Wilkins who is the co-author of the book I am reading, “Food in the Ancient World”. There seem to be so many John Wilkinses.
Oh, so you’re not the John *M* Wilkins who is the co-author of the book I am reading, “Food in the Ancient World”. There seem to be so many John Wilkinses.