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One man's struggle against impermanence
John Wilkins is an eternal student, who thinks philosophy of biology is at least as interesting as politics or sport and twice as important. He has a PhD from the University of Melbourne and worked at the University of Queensland, in Australia, before taking up a research fellowship at the University of Sydney. After a varied career, involving factories, gardening, civil service, publishing, graphics, public relations but not, unfortunately for the CV, driving a truck, John finally completed his thesis on species concepts in 2004, which he has worked into two books.
This blog is designed evolved to host any random thoughts that happen to be passing through my forebrain at a given moment. So there will be errors...
I also have an Australia-focussed blog: The Drought Resistant Philosopher
The previous instantiation of this blog is accessible here.
January 31, 2007
Category: Administrative
Start of School Year for Son.... Reading this: "Making Sense of Evolution: The Conceptual Foundations of Evolutionary Biology" (Massimo Pigliucci, Jonathan Kaplan) and this: "Darwinian Reductionism: Or, How to Stop Worrying and Love Molecular Biology" (Alex Rosenberg) Do likewise...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:54 PM • •
January 29, 2007
Category: General Science
As a chronic insomniac (and consequently incoherent raver - the mutterings at the end of the Beatle's "I'm so tired" represent my daily conversation), I am very interested to read of a possible drug that targets a hormone family called "orexins", low levels of which are found in narcoleptics.... Some of you neurologically and pharmacologically educated bloggers: read and expound on this please!
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:10 AM • 1 Comments •
January 27, 2007
Category: Humor
If I had a category for "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?" this would be in it. The Sciblings are doing it, so I must. I am:Gregory BenfordA master literary stylist who is also a working...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:32 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: Politics
Sure, everyone made the CoE noises, except for the few non-Christians (mostly Jews) who found their way into public office, but basically, the place of religion was defined by the nasty role of Catholic "intellectuals" who tried to force Australian mores into their own mold back in the 1930s through to the 1950s.... Beginning with the present government (conservative, oddly known as the Liberal Party), and the past leader of the opposition (social democrat, oddly known as Labor), both sides have been asserting their religious credentials.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:37 AM • •
January 24, 2007
Category: Administrative
Tetrapod Zoology, which has been one of my favourite blogs for some time now, has finally moved into Da House! It will get fine tuned, as things go on, I'm sure, but the look and feel are secondary to the wonderful content.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:50 PM • 2 Comments •
January 23, 2007
Category: Basic Concepts
First of all I'd like to disagree with the entire way the debate has been framed over the past 150 years or so and state this: There is only one species concept. That is to say, there is only one concept that we are all trying to define in many ways, according to both our preferred theories of how species come into being and maintain themselves over evolutionary time, and what happens to be the general case for the group of organisms we have in our minds when we attempt our definitions.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:58 PM • 11 Comments •
Category: History
Linneaus put out at least 13 editions of this in his lifetime, and the famous 10th edition was adopted in the 19th century as the "gold standard" - if Linnaeus named a species, that was its name thereafter, and if not, then the first person to name it after the 10th edition, published in 1758, got the credit. In the course of the work, and other books such as the Fundamenta Botanica, Linnaeus defined species as "There are as many species as the Infinite Being produced diverse forms in the beginning."
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:43 AM • 7 Comments •
January 22, 2007
Category: Creationism
PEER have added some clarification over their pre-Christmas release about creationist literature at the NPS bookshops at the Grand Canyon. I interpreted it this way, but their loose wording caused a furor about NPS staff not being able to give the age of the GC.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:51 PM • •
Category: General Science
Darren Naish has announced, sort of, forthcoming evolutionary changes to his blog. Stay tuned for more information...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:47 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Basic Concepts
Fitness. Of the many concepts of evolution, this is perhaps one of the more widely misunderstood.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:12 AM • 33 Comments •
Orac 02.13.2012
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PZ Myers 02.02.2012
ERV 11.26.2011
