One man's struggle against impermanence
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...
Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion
Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design (New Histories of Science, Technology, and Medicine)
Foundations of Systematics and Biogeography
Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings: Piecewise Approximations to Reality
Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World (Evolution and Cognition Series)
My personal page is here:
The previous instantiation of this blog is accessible here.
June 26, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:52 PM • • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:44 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
The Register is reporting that the UK government has ruled that intelligent design is not acceptable in science classes. [via Slashdot]...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:11 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 22, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:43 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 21, 2007
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......
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:37 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 20, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:46 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:11 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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,...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:45 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:36 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:29 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 15, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:25 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:45 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 14, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:31 AM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 13, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:52 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:11 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 12, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 12:51 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 11, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:14 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 10, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:35 AM • 84 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:43 AM • 32 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Creationism
Via Stumble!...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 3:54 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:10 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 8, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:08 PM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:52 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:39 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 7, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:14 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 6, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:02 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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]...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:42 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:06 AM • 43 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 5, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:27 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:44 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 4, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:24 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 2, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:58 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:17 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:37 AM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 1, 2007
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...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:03 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
