Seed Media Group

Evolving Thoughts

One man's struggle against impermanence

Search this blog

Profile

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...

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Blogroll

Books I'm reading


Search old and new blogs



Other Information

My personal page is here:

John Wilkins' personal page

The previous instantiation of this blog is accessible here.

Powered by FeedBurner

Add to Technorati Favorites Wikio - Top of the Blogs - Sciences Blog Directory - Blogged

June 26, 2007

New Philosophy of Biology Forum

Category: Evolution

Run by Matt Haber at Utah, it's a forum for discussions of work in progress, student matters like employment, tech issues and biology and society topics, to mention only a few. It's in alpha form now, but expect it...

Read on »

Where's Wilkins?

Category: Administrative

OK, so while the vandals are playing some weird game on another thread, I suppose I better tell the rest of you what's happening. 1. I'm applying for a real job, and another postdoc. 2. I have two conference...

Read on »

ID not OK in UK

Category: Creationism

The Register is reporting that the UK government has ruled that intelligent design is not acceptable in science classes. [via Slashdot]...

Read on »

June 22, 2007

Lewes on Heredity, in 1856

Category: Evolution

I'm putting this up because I will use it to discuss the history of species definitions in a forthcoming talk. It's very interesting for a number of reasons, one of which is the species nominalism, and another that Lewes...

Read on »

June 21, 2007

There will be slight delay

Category: Administrative

... as I attend to a bunch of administrative, career and professional duties. Please be patient. Your thoughts are important to us, and the next trained monkeyoperator will attend as soon as possible......

Read on »

June 20, 2007

Greewald on Bush on Evil

Category: History

A very thoughtful and interesting, dare I say almost philosophical, discussion of the Manichaean nature of the Bush Administration is in the present Salon here. A quote: The power to order people detained and imprisoned based solely on accusation...

Read on »

Did some dinosaurs survive the K-T boundary

Category: Evolution

A new paper in New Mexico Geology has the following rather tendentious title: Fassett, J.E. 2007. The documentation of in-place dinosaur fossils in the Paleocene Ojo Alamo Sandstone and Animas Formation in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico...

Read on »

Couple of organismic blogs

Category: Biodiversity

No! Not orgasmic! [There, that should bump up the hits] You all know, of course, the inestimable Darren Naish and his wonderful blog Tetrapod Zoology. What? You don't? Go there immediately and come back when you've read it all,...

Read on »

Etruscans

Category: General Science

In a well known quote, the nineteenth century historian and classicist Theodore Mommsen said that the origins of the Etruscans was "neither capable of being known nor worth the knowing". He had no idea of the results made possible...

Read on »

Journalists and scientists - an antimatter explosion?

Category: General Science

What happens when you put journalists in contact with scientists? To hear some people tell it, it results in an antimatter-matter explosion that destroys careers and causing black holes of ignorance in the general population, particularly when the density...

Read on »

June 15, 2007

The World According to Genesis: Language and Society

Category: History

After the Flood, the earth is repopulated, and so R and P give us a list of notable ancestors. In 10:4-5 they say "And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. By these were the isles...

Read on »

Pell may be censured by Parliament

Category: Politics

Cardinal-Imam George Pell, who threatened Catholic politicians with excommunication indirectly (and exclusion from the sacraments directly) if they voted in favour of stem cell research being permitted in a new Bill, is liable to being held in contempt of...

Read on »

June 14, 2007

Rights for nonhuman apes?

Category: General Science

New Scientist is reporting that a case in Austria (not Australia - we share a love of beer, but that's about it) is set to decide if chimps have rights. They already do in Spain, and in New Zealand...

Read on »

June 13, 2007

Einstein's Credo

Category: Logic and philosophy

At the end of August 1932 Einstein wrote "My Credo" in Caputh. The original text was written in German. At the beginning of September he read it for a recording by order and to the benefit of the German...

Read on »

"Species" in the Stanford Encyclopedia updated

Category: Evolution

Marc Ereshfsky's entry on "Species" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been updated, though not to remove the classic "Essentialism Story" that has been called into question by a number of scholars lately. Under the fold, I will...

Read on »

June 12, 2007

The kangaroo is the first organism, but the fungus is not the biggest

Category: Evolution

So the record for the "world's largest organism" has again been claimed for a fungus, something Stephen Jay Gould wrote about in his wonderfully titled essay "A Humongous Fungus Among Us" back in 1992, and which was included in...

Read on »

June 11, 2007

The World According to Genesis: The Flood

Category: General Science

The Flood is perhaps the most scientifically interesting story in Genesis, and it has, in fact, been discussed by scientists for over 400 years. Now we are taking the text to tell us of a world, not taking the...

Read on »

Scorecard for the Creationist Wars

Category: Creationism

In case you are getting all confused about which creationist organisation ot oppose and why, Duae Quartunciae has an excellent roundup of the present AiG/CMI dispute....

Read on »

June 10, 2007

Sunday sermon: part of the in-crowd

Category: Humor

The world is divided, runs the old joke (which I heard when it wasn't so old), into two kinds: those who divided the world into two kinds, and those who don't. [There's actually an interesting feature of the history...

Read on »

What is an Agnostic? by Bertrand Russell

Category: Logic and philosophy

Bertrand Russell, a leading philosopher in his prime, was also a wonderful writer. And, it appears, many of my views were formed when I was but still Young in the Discipline of Philosophy by reading Russell. Here is an...

Read on »

Hmmm

Category: Creationism

Via Stumble!...

Read on »

I'm [nearly] one year old

Category: Administrative

Everyone else is noting the pulse of migration to the SEED stable that occurred here a year ago. Oddly, my ecto links tell me I first posted here on the 25th of June, not the 9th, but who cares....

Read on »

June 8, 2007

Perspective

Category: Social evolution

A 26 year old woman is convicted of twice driving while on probation for having done so drunk earlier. She is an adult who knew very well what the consequences of her actions would be, for her. Fortunately, she...

Read on »

The World According to Genesis: Other peoples

Category: Creationism

This is the last section I will discuss in detail. It is, of course, the story of Cain and Abel. Cain is a farmer, and Abel is a herdsman. Both of these are agrarian pursuits, in the new agricultural...

Read on »

Rorty has died

Category: Logic and philosophy

The Leiter Report has a brief obit. Richard Rorty was a significant thinker, although I must say that what I learned from his work Philosophy and the MIrror of Nature, I had to unlearn later on. But that is...

Read on »

June 7, 2007

Schadenfreude for AiG

Category: Creationism

Schadenfreude , n. Pleasure found in the misfortunes of Answers in Genesis, who employed a pornography actor to play Adam. Well, at least it makes sense - didn't Adam and Eve fall because they had sex? I'm sure some...

Read on »

June 6, 2007

Pell causes Catholics stress

Category: Politics

Clerical Catholic Imam, George Pell, has done it again. Proven why secularism is a necessity, that is. He has threatened politicians who are Catholics with exclusion from communion, which is not quite excommunication but nevertheless still pretty drastic, if...

Read on »

Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 3. Science is a Dynamic Process

Category: Basic Concepts

In this post, I want to propose my own view, or rather the views I have come to accept, about the nature of science. [Part 1; Part 2]...

Read on »

The World According to Genesis: Moral Knowledge

Category: Creationism

Like any middle eastern deity, YHWHW Elohim is a fairly petty individual. He doesn't want competition from his creations, so he blocks access to the "Tree of Life", which is a magical tree whose fruit can make you live forever. We have two magical trees, a corporeal deity of limited knowledge and good will, a snake that talks and has intentions like any trickster god to thwart the designs of the deity, and a justification for wearing clothes, which is not a matter just of shame, but of intended purpose.

Read on »

June 5, 2007

Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 2. Two topics of philosophy of science

Category: Basic Concepts

Philosophy of science deals largely with two general topics: Metaphysics and Epistemology. These are general topics of philosophy, and in the philosophy of science they deal only with the metaphysics and epistemology of science. So there are no overarching...

Read on »

Genesis 2 rewritten

Category: Creationism

It is also likely that if God re-issued Genesis 2, he'd do it as a comic strip like this. Oops I forgot to link it... fixed now....

Read on »

June 4, 2007

Philosophy is to science, as ornithologists are to birds: 1. Introduction

Category: Basic Concepts

This three-part series is a talk I gave a while back to some ecologists and molecular biologists. It is a brief overview of the aims and relationship between science and philosophy of science, with a special reference to the...

Read on »

June 2, 2007

Reed Elsevier accepts criticism, drops arms support

Category: Logic and philosophy

Well blow me down and call me a dishmop. Reed Elsevier, who I recently criticised for running arms exhibitions while publishing medical and other intellectual journals, and who were boycotted by medical authors, has folded. They are, according to...

Read on »

Now this is a proper wedding ceremony

Category: Humor

I only recently discovered 9 Chickwood Lane, which is a really odd cartoon strip with ballet dancers, veterinarians and a visiting space alien named Thorax. Before I found this (and Pibgorn, which is in the same universe), Thorax officated...

Read on »

The World According to Genesis: Humanity

Category: Creationism

So in chapter 2, we shift stories. Now we have a story that is far older than the first chapter, and is regarded by scholars as the "Yahwist" creation story, and it focuses primarily on humans. The story is...

Read on »

June 1, 2007

The World according to Genesis: Stuff that grows

Category: Creationism

We're in the third day, and Elohim has made dry land, but no sun or stars or moon. Still, he's keen to see something growing, so he tells the land to produce, by spontaneous generation as it was later...

Read on »

Search All Blogs

Blogs in the Network

Top Five: Readers' Picks

Top Science Stories

powered by SEED - seedmagazine.com