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
Ecology and Biodiversity Hope for bonobos 21 Nov 2007 The African apes don’t get much good news these days. But the Congo has just announced they are setting up a preserve to protect the bonobo. The size of the Sankuru Nature Reserve is 11,803 square miles (in real money, 30 569.629 square kilometers), which makes it nearly half the… Read More
Biology Godfrey Smith’s book 27 Jul 2009 Peter Godfrey Smith is a leading philosopher of biology, a professor at Harvard. He has recently published an important book on the nature of evolution, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, in which he moves away from the gene centrism of Dawkins to a reproducer view in which objects that form… Read More
Biology George C. Williams dies 11 Sep 2010 Few evolutionary biologists have had the impact within and without their field as has George Williams, who died this week. His groundbreaking Adaptation and Natural Selection in 1966 set off the debate over levels of selection, the ubiquity of natural selection and some decent philosophising. It’s no exaggeration to say… 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.