Yet another Darwin diagnosis 18 Jan 2010 Diagnosing Darwin’s maladies is something of a professional sport amongst doctors. Previously he has been diagnosed as having Chagas Disease, chronic fatigue, various viruses, and now something called cyclical vomiting syndrome. Since this “diagnosis” sounds like a simple description of the symptoms, colour me unimpressed. Evolution History
Epistemology Pattern cladism and the myth of theory dependence of observation 4 Mar 2011 A new paper has been published in the History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, entitled “Pattern Cladism, Homology, and Theory-Neutrality” by Christopher Pearson. Either the journal has done something horrible to the text, or the author doesn’t know the difference between Willi Hennig and William Hennig, or between Gareth… Read More
Evolution William Smellie on the great chain of being 2 Mar 2009 William Smellie wrote The Philosophy of Natural History in 1791, and it remained in print for over a century. It’s a lovely and explicit expression of the Great Chain of Being view that all things grade insensibly from simple to perfect, and all classifications are arbitrary. This was effectively the… Read More
Censorship Goodbye freedom 10 Sep 201113 Sep 2011 Ten years ago tomorrow tonight I was watching an episode of West Wing, and, as I do, channel surfing during the ads. One channel showed a fire in the World Trade Centre, which less than a month earlier I had stood at the base of looking up like the Australian… Read More
Whenever I see the word “syndrome” this comes to my mind http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1762 and I loose all seriousness. []’s Leo