Now on ScienceBlogs: The Galaxy's Biggest Valentine
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.
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 • •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
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 •
