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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 Sessional Lecturer 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 in 2004, which he has worked into two books. Species Definitions: A Sourcebook (Peter Lang) will come out in 2008; Species: A History of an Idea (University of California Press) will appear, it is hoped, in early 2009. He is also interested in cultural evolution, philosophy of religion, Macintosh computers and his kids.

If anyone knows of a tenurable, or even medium term, job in philosophy of biology, let me know. Have library, will travel. The contract ran out ...

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...

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« A piece of useful software for Mac-using teachers | Main | Lectures done! »

Mutant genres

Category: AdministrativeHumor
Posted on: October 21, 2007 11:08 AM, by John S. Wilkins

This is a meme started by PZ Mackers. I will exact retribution upon him later. In the meantime, I have been tagged

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

  • You can leave them exactly as is.
  • You can delete any one question.
  • You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".
  • You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
  • You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My great-great-great-great-great grandparent is Pharyngula

My great-great-great-great grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club

My great-great-great grandparent is Flying Trilobite

My great-great grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock

My great-grandparent is The Primate Diaries

My grandparent is Conspiracy Factory

My parent is The Skeptical Alchemist [the mungrel!]

The best time travel novel in SF/fantasy is:
The best novel of Jewish literature published in English is:
The best page-turner book in Nobel-prize-winning fiction is:
I am propagating this meme on to:

1) De Rerum Natura

2) The Lippard Blog

3) Catalogue of Organisms

4) Musgrave's Astroblogger

5) Sunbeams from Cucumbers

6) Thoughts in a Haystack

StumbleUpon Toolbar Stumble It!

Comments

#1

I feel so ... violated!

Posted by: John Pieret | October 21, 2007 1:37 PM

#2

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: Thus follows the Revenge of the Deadly Myers Mutant Meme!

FX: DRAMATIC CHORD FOLLOWED BY FAY WRAY SCREAM FOLLOWED BY SPLASH

ECCLES-MYERS: I've fallen in the water.

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: Silly damp boy. Neddy, Neddy, come here and let me dry you off with this syllogism.

SEAGOON: But I'm not wet.

FX: TOILET FLUSHING

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: You were saying?

SEAGOON: What, what what? What is that you are injecting in my upper leg.

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: It's the deadly Myers Mutant Meme Syllogism.

SEAGOON: Sapristi knocko! It's changing!

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: Exactly!

SEAGOON: You mean...

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: Yes, it's becoming...

FX: DRAMATIC CHORD

GRYTPYPE-THYNNE: ... an in-thigh-meme!!

FX: RIM-SHOT FOLLOWED BY SOUND OF HOUSE COMING DOWN

Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | October 21, 2007 7:47 PM

#3

I don't know who you are, Sir, but you've done me a power of good.

Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 21, 2007 7:53 PM

#4

mungrel? ah!

Posted by: steppen wolf | October 21, 2007 8:02 PM

#5

Perfectly good 17th century English:

"In this enumeration I do not mention the Mule,
because ‘tis a mungrel production, and not to be rekoned
as a distinct species." Bp John Wilkins FRS, An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language, 1668, p164

Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 21, 2007 9:24 PM

#6

Wow, one of my descendants! Fancy the meme coming here by that path.

Posted by: Russell Blackford | October 23, 2007 10:05 AM

#7

"I don't know who you are, Sir, but you've done me a power of good."

-His real name is Spike Milligoon

Posted by: Ian | October 23, 2007 1:21 PM

#8

Really? Odd... I have it here as Spike Milligna, the well-known typing error.

Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 23, 2007 10:22 PM

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