Now on ScienceBlogs: And so, driven on ceaselessly toward new shores
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.
October 31, 2007
Category: Evolution
To summarise: so far we have three general kinds of explanations of religion. There are sociological explanations in terms of the economic, societal and political conditions under which religions develop. There are psychological explanations in terms of experiences, existential...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:28 AM • 13 Comments •
Category: Evolution
From J. B. S. Haldane's 1932 The Causes of Evolution: ... I must ... discuss a fallacy which is, I think, latent in most Darwinian arguments, and which has been responsible for a good deal of poisonous nonsense which...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:16 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Biodiversity
Here is an article in Harvard Magazine on bacteria and other wee beasties that make up the bulk of the living world, that is worth reading. It's called "The Undiscovered Planet". Hat tip to Jason Grossman....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 12:16 AM • 3 Comments •
October 29, 2007
Category: Administrative
The above are icons to be used when blogging on actual peer-reviewed research (as opposed to popular reports or kookery). I had a marginal involvement in this (I made some passing comments early on) so it is with great...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:29 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: Politics
Here is a wonderful (and for us old fogeys, resonant) essay by Chris Kelly at The Huffington Post on the use of the Geneva Convention by both Nazis and Allies during the second world war. The money quote: In...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:12 PM • 5 Comments •
Category: Politics
I actually don't dislike the guy, but this is one of the funniest political ads I've ever seen. For forners (not from Orstraya), it helps to know that Rudd leads the erstwhile socialist party, speaks Mandarin, and is likely to...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:19 PM • 6 Comments •
October 28, 2007
Category: Evolution
UPDATED: To give some of my colleagues at the University of Queensland some link love, it is being reported that they have sequenced the Queensland lungfish (currently under threat by a proposed dam) opsin genes, showing that they see...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:42 AM • 6 Comments •
Category: Creationism
Michael Ruse has a new article up on creationism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. There's not much new to those who know his work, but the following comment resonates - dare I say thunders - in the Science...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:36 AM • 39 Comments •
October 25, 2007
Category: Logic and philosophy
I now turn to the question of explananda - what is it that explanations of religion are adduced to explain?...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:51 PM • 6 Comments •
Category: Logic and philosophy
David Chalmers and David Bourget of the Australian National University have a great new resource up of online papers on mind:...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:13 AM • 2 Comments •
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