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.
July 31, 2007
Category: General Science
Some guy named Chris Mooney got reviewed for his latest book Storm World in the LA Times. You'd think from the reviewer's comments that he did a good job. I've heard the name before... now where? Hmmm.... leave that...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:43 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
Sorry to bother you all with internal Australian politics, but this has to be discussed. Now the minister for immigration is saying that the Australian Federal Police intercepted a chat room conversation in which Haneef was told to leave...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:28 AM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 30, 2007
Category: Humor
Your results:You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 80% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 70% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 65% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 60% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 55% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 55% River (Stowaway) 50% Wash (Ship Pilot) 40%...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:41 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
So the ISHPSSB Conference is done, and here I sit in the University of Exeter Library getting some internetting done for the first time in a week. Great conference. I got to meet Scibling John Lynch and his colleagues...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:49 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 27, 2007
Category: Politics
A short note - it looks like Haneef has been cleared of all charges and the political pressure on his arrest and detention has been criticised by civil rights lawyers. Good news, but I really hope further action is...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:31 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 25, 2007
Category: Administrative
So, I finally have access to the internet. For the past few days I've been either in London, on planes, trains or in Exeter, where I am now for the ISHPSSB biennial conference of philosophers and historians (and some...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:14 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 20, 2007
Category: Politics
In yet further evidence that due process is a bulwark against the arrogance and incompetence, not to say potential police statery, of intelligence agencies, it turns out that the core piece of evidence against Dr Haneef, the Indian doctor...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 3:08 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 19, 2007
Category: Administrative
So I'm off to the Mother Country on Saturday my time. Anyone in London who wants to meet for dinner on Sunday or Monday nights, drop me an email before I fly off......
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 12:59 AM • 28 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 18, 2007
Category: Evolution
In recent years it has becoming increasingly obvious that there is a considerable amount of lateral, or cross phylogenetic, transfer of genetic material. In bacteria, this happens by several mechanisms, such as uptake of gene fragments from cells that...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:54 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
An Indian doctor working in Queensland, where I live, whose cousin was involved in the failed bombing plot in the UK, was detained apparently because he lent his prepaid SIM card to the cousin. He was held without charge...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:06 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 17, 2007
Category: Humor
You Are 94% Non Conformist You're incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate! No one really understands you. And you're cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them! Are You a...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:24 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 15, 2007
Category: Creationism
There has been a bit of a resurgence of science versus religion posts and chatter in various forums* that I inhabit when I'm not working lately. It occurred to me that it might be time to do one of...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:12 AM • 61 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 14, 2007
Category: Creationism
A religious body or faith community that speaks only with only exclamation points but no question marks misses the complexity of creation and the beauty of evolution. Rabbi Kendall in Stuart, Florida...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:48 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 13, 2007
Category: Logic and philosophy
But state space models in physical sciences tend to provide not a single coordinate, but a surface over which the system or phenomenon under explanations can range - so long as the observed trajectory of the system is on or near the surface described by the model, there is so far an explanation of the facts. A full explanation would, I think, involve showing in a suitably rich state space that only the actual states are possible, in the order they are observed (which turns out to be a single coordinate in a state space of the dynamical model after all).
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:49 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 9, 2007
Category: Humor
No, really, it is. And although I followed the Identikit procedures exactly, I'm sure anyone who has met me will say I look nothing like this guy:...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:58 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
I probably agree with Christopher Hitchens on many substantive points. But I won't be reading his book. Instead, we can thank this reviewer for their critical, ascerbic, and I suspect in the end accurate review of God is Not...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:44 PM • 38 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Humor
Proving, contrary to the father's comments in the story, that it really is the dark ages, an Australian Catholic Church school has banned (and since rescinded) a child whose surname is "Hell".... The 15th century was the time of the rebirth of classical learning with the translation of Aristotle's works and many Arabic scholarship into Latin.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:36 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Religion
A woman who stabbed her entire family, killing her father and teenage sister, in Sydney, turns out to be a psychotic.... She was doing the right thing and her stupid parents' religion (that parses both ways, and rightly) interfered.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:18 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 7, 2007
Category: Biodiversity
Naturalised Brazilian, Dutch biologist Marc van Roosmalen, has been sentenced to 14 years jail in Brazil for running a monkey refuge without a permit from Ibama, the local environmental agency. Not that he didn't apply, mark you, but Ibama didn't respond, and the received local wisdom is that if they don't within 45 days, it's approved.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:23 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 6, 2007
Category: Politics
we do what we're told we do what we're told we do what we're told told to do one doubt one voice one war one truth one dream Peter Gabriel, So, "Milgram's 37 (we do what we're told)"...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:33 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.... At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:20 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 5, 2007
Category: Politics
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:48 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
July 4, 2007
Category: Evolution
Back from the drinking sessionconference, with many good thoughts. One in particular is due to the talk by Aiden Lyons at ANU on probability and evolution - after more than two decades trying to figure it out, I had...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:38 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
