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Grumpy John Wilkins is an aged, 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 a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland, in Australia. 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, which he is working into two books. One has been accepted for publication, and will come out in 2008; the other may be contracted soon. He is also interested in cultural evolution, philosophy of religion, Macintosh computers and his kids (they sort of make it a necessity, you know?).

If anyone knows of a tenurable, or even medium term, job in philosophy of biology, let me know. Have library, will travel. The contract runs out soon...

This blog is designed to host any random thoughts that happen to be passing through my forebrain at a given moment. So there will be errors...

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January 31, 2007

Where Wilkins?

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...

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January 29, 2007

To sleep, perchance to dream

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!

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January 27, 2007

Which SF writer are you?

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...

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Political irony

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.

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January 24, 2007

Darren Naish arrives

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.

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January 23, 2007

Species

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.

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The man who invented evolution

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."

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January 22, 2007

Update on the Grand Canyon affair

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.

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Tetrapod evolution

Category: General Science

Darren Naish has announced, sort of, forthcoming evolutionary changes to his blog. Stay tuned for more information...

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Fitness

Category: Basic Concepts

Fitness. Of the many concepts of evolution, this is perhaps one of the more widely misunderstood.

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January 21, 2007

Is philosophy progressive? (Is science?)

Category: General Science

It's nice to see the author has read and understood Hull's point that most science is not progressive, and that we have only got the basis for believing science progresses if we ignore the bulk of science which dies stillborn and is never heard of again.... So long as we ignore the bulk of philosophy, which plays word salad football, or which clings to older metaphysics out of religious commitment and a need for the security of tradition, we can say philosophy has progressed.

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Waiter, there's a spam in my insect

Category: Humor

In an inadvertently, or perhaps deliberately, funny abstract, D. Osorio notes that there's a role for spam in insect evolution. Spam and the evolution of the fly's eye. Osorio D. School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG,...

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January 19, 2007

Another kind of agnosticism

Category: Philosophy of Science

Two ideal characters, whom I shall call Atheist and Theist, are debating before an audience of ideal agnostics --and now we understand by this term agnostics of the common-or-garden variety, people who neither believe that God exists nor believe that God does not exist.... Actually, they are the vector sum of all the weightings of the audience combined, since I'm not a Platonist and don't think logic or any abstract object exists independently of cognition, but let's assume that if auditor Alice shifts her weightings towards (improbableX), that doesn't force either the ensemble to shift much or any other member of the audience to shift in the same direction.

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January 16, 2007

More basic concepts

Category: Basic Concepts

A couple more Basic Concepts posts have been put up. Chaz Orzel at Uncertain Principles defines "Force" in physics. And PZ Myers at Pharyngula defines "Gene". However, PZ does this as a molecular biologist would, and ignores the phenotypic effects...

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Science blog anthology published

Category: General Science

Not to be too self-promoting, but I have an essay in the Science Blog Anthology, which you can purchase here. There's one or two other essays worth reading as well. Go check it out....

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January 15, 2007

Basic concepts: Normal distributions

Category: Basic Concepts

Mark Chu-Carroll has a good short discussion of the statistical concept of a "normal distribution" up....

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Another reason why performers aren't running the world

Category: Humor

Ian McCulloch, lead singer for Echo and the Bunnymen has a "Credo" in the Independent Online, in which he delivers himself of this constipated turd: I believe in anti-Darwinism - otherwise why are there still monkeys? Anyone who thinks Darwinism...

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January 13, 2007

Colourworks

Category: Humor

I just loved the first Sony Bravia TV ad, with the balls bouncing down San Francisco streets, but the second one, with paint "fireworks" is spectacular. Below the fold is the ad and a link to "the making of"....

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Moran on evolution

Category: Basic Concepts

Larry Moran has a Basic Concepts post on Evolution. It's not quite what I'd have written, but it's good anyway. Even if he isn't sufficiently selectionist and gene-centric......

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January 12, 2007

Clade

Category: Basic Concepts

This is the first in an irregular series of basic concepts in science, that I suggested to the Seed Bloggers we might do from time to time. If anyone wants to suggest a revision, because I got it wrong...

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In the mud

Category: Evolution

Quick... what was Darwin's most popular book? If you answered The Origin of Species, you were wrong. It was his last book, published the year before he died, The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With...

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8 year old finds 15 million year old horse fossils

Category: Evolution

One of the more famous events in the development of evolutionary biology was the shift from the linear notion of horse evolution proposed by E. D. Cope O. C. Marsh and T. H. Huxley in the 19th century to...

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I'm a card

Category: Humor

Nobody ever tags me......

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January 11, 2007

Hilaly does it again, but so what?

Category: Politics

Sheik al-Hilaly has again made comments about Australians and their way of life. We're dishonest, unjust, and there is no freedom or democracy here. Oddly, this is something he is entitled to say in Australia. Let him try to make...

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More political interference and cronyism at NASA

Category: Politics

NASA Watch reports that Patrick Rhode, the deputy to Michael Brown, of Hurricane Katrina FEMA infamy, has been appointed to a NASA position. His total lack of experience at anything except getting Bush and Cheney elected makes this a very...

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January 9, 2007

Solomon obit

Category: Logic and philosophy

I hope the Austin American-Statesman doesn't mind me reproducing this obituary to one of the University of Texas' favourite sons......

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January 5, 2007

Status report

Category: Administrative

Well, I got another paper revised and out the door a couple of hours ago (it started life as a series of blog posts on microbial species here), so I am feeling almost lightheaded. But I have one other paper...

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Maybe Bush is a psychopath

Category: Politics

Courtesy of Thoughts from Kansas comes a link to this site where a short test using the standard diagnostic criteria for psychopathy allows you to decide if Bush is a psychopath. My own assessment gave him 38/40, which is well...

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January 4, 2007

Grand Canyon tapdancing by NPS

Category: Creationism

PEER, a website devoted to promoting environmental responsibility by public institutions, notes that three years after promising to review the literature on display at the Grand Canyon National Park after creationist literature was on offer, nothing has happened. In fact,...

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January 3, 2007

Bob Solomon dies

Category: Logic and philosophy

A well-known philosopher of the emotions, Hegel, and existentialism, Bob Solomon died yesterday. He was only 59. He was instrumental in setting up the International Society for Research on Emotions (ISRE). I met Bob when he came out to our...

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Some historical biology sites.

Category: Philosophy of Science

In addition to the wonderful Darwin's Writings on the Web site, there's also a Lamarck on the Web, an Alfred Russel Wallace site, and a Buffon site. Put your favourite historical biology sites in the comments, and I'll assemble a...

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January 2, 2007

Agnostics on notice

Category: Humor

Hat tip: Pharyngula...

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Catholic Health Minister gives Church pregnancy counselling service

Category: Politics

In yet another attempt to Catholicise the Australian options on health, Minister Tony Abbott, a Catholic, continues his reckless quest by assigning to the Catholic Church in Australia a contract to provide pregnancy counselling services. This is in part because...

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Soteriology and Corot

Category: Creationism

Mark Vernon, at the Guardian's blog site, asks what would happen to theology if Corot finds evidence of inhabited planets (which it won't, because it's not set up for that). He raises the traditional theological concerns, made popular in C....

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Will the real criminals be punished?

Category: Politics

I was watching the Frontline report "The Enemy Within", on the FBI and a prosecutor who got an obviously innocent couple of Muslims convicted of terrorism in Lodi, California, and the prosecutor, McGregor Scott, was obviously uncomfortable about his role...

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Ron Numbers interview at Salon

Category: Creationism

Salon has a nice interview with the historian and sociologist of creationism well worth reading. In particular, this: Are you an atheist? I don't think so. I think that's a belief -- that there's no God. I really wanted to...

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Surfing safer than college sports

Category: Humor

A new report says that the injury rate for surfers is lower than for college sports like soccer and basketball. But basketball players don't get bitten by sharks. Actually, all exercise is bad for you. Nobody ever did a hamstring...

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