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.
November 29, 2007
Category: Evolution
The term "radical" is a very loose term. It basically means "something that differs wildly from the consensus" in ordinary usage. So I hope David Williams and Malte Ebach won't take offense if I say that they have a...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 6:29 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 27, 2007
Category: Humor
This little piece by netfriend Richard Harter, who apparently predates coal, serves to demonstrate that philosophers really aren't clever enough at thinking up counterexamples......
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:51 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
This is kicking a man when he's down, but the iPod popped this up to me last night, and I thought how appropriate it is to the election outcome:...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 12:35 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 26, 2007
Category: Philosophy of Science
Brian Leiter is reporting, and the University of Cambridge confirms it, that Peter Lipton, a well known philosopher of science, has died. Leiter will put up an obit later. For now, here is a very good paper of Lipton's...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:51 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History
This paragraph: This shared failing is no surprise, because the very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal,...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:40 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 25, 2007
Category: Humor
From Henry Gee's blog: Dear Professor Trellis Thank you for your manuscript entitled “On the positively negative interaction between one abbreviation and another abbreviation, conditional on the negatively double-negative interaction between a third abbreviation and one or other of...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:35 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Logic and philosophy
I have a rule (Wilkins' Law #35, I think) that if any scientist is going to draw unwarranted metaphysical conclusions, it will be a physicist, and in particular a cosmologist. Witness Paul Davies in the New York Times. Davies...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:00 AM • 76 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
Unlike PZ Moorsch, I don't get much abusive email, because I'm so much more mild mannered than he is. But I got this gem from an Australian using his cousin's South African email account: your feedback on the one...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:52 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
As I watched the total collapse of the conservatives in the federal election, and the landslide of Labor wins, I mused......
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:11 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 24, 2007
Category: Evolution
... a book was published that changed the way we thought of biology....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:10 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 22, 2007
Category: Evolution
So now, I think it's worth asking what we really can achieve by doing sociobiological investigations, and some of the traps in previous attempts....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:34 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 21, 2007
Category: Evolution
This is the fourth of a series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Wilson and Wilson (W&W) then continue on to employ some recent work on individuals as groups, and the "major transitions" literature....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:45 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Biodiversity
The African apes don't get much good news these days. But the Congo has just announced they are setting up a preserve to protect the bonobo. The size of the Sankuru Nature Reserve is 11,803 square miles (in real...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 12:33 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 19, 2007
Category: Evolution
[The third in a series on a recent paper by David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson. Post 1; Post 2] In presenting a group selectionist account of sociobiology, Wilson and Wilson argue that alternatives such as kin selection...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:07 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 18, 2007
Category: Evolution
Wilson and Wilson begin by reviewing the reasons why sociobiology of the 1970s was rejected. They focus on the arguments against group selection....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:56 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
It's not often I get to comment on as-yet-unpublished work, but I have been sent a copy of a forthcoming essay by David Sloan Wilson and Edward O. Wilson, two giants of the theoretical evolutionary field, defending and redefining...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 4:23 AM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Administrative
You may have spotted that I have created a new category called, expressively, "Book". This is primarily for when I review books, which I am going to do more, but also when a book raises issues I want to...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:43 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
I have always enjoyed reading the work of Frans de Waal, a primatologist who focuses on the social structure and psychology of apes, particularly the two chimp species, and monkeys. His previous books, Good Natured: The Origins of Right...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:20 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 12, 2007
Category: Administrative
If you really liked one of my posts in the last 12 months, please nominate it for the Open Laboratory anthology for 2007. See the little icon at the left side of the screen? Bora is taking final submissions now....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:24 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 11, 2007
Category: Biodiversity
Following on from my previous post "Are species theoretical objects", I want now to discuss what the status of species as phenomenal objects is....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:29 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 10, 2007
Category: Biodiversity
When people visit Australia, we locals like to play up the dangers, like the most poisonous snakes and spiders, poisonous jellyfish, sharks, the drop bears, and of course the crocs. Very few of these are actually dangerous, in that...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:08 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
I've been so busy reading and assimilating the latest issue of Biology and Philosophy I forgot to let you all know about it. It's a special issue on Homology, edited by Paul Griffiths and Ingo Brigandt. A discussion group...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:10 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 8, 2007
Category: Administrative
Some things that piqued my interest without triggering a full post:...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:16 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 7, 2007
Category: Biodiversity
So, I was browsing through the CBD site, and idly wondered which countries have not signed on to this attempt to reduce the loss of biodiversity worldwide. The answer? Iraq Somalia Brunei The Holy See The United States of...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 1:49 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 6, 2007
Category: Evolution
The saying that "man is a wolf to man" comes from a saying of Erasmus of Rotterdam, but it is incomplete. The Latin is Homo homini aut deus aut lupus or "Man is either a god or a wolf...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:04 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
I can't believe Laelaps beat me to this (shows how on the ball he is) but he's just noted a paper that I watched getting written, and discussed in detail with Chris Glen, a very smart and talented young...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:28 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 5, 2007
Category: Evolution
In a famous essay Borges wrote of an infinite library that contained all possible books (and most of it nonsense at that). The mind is not like that. It has only a few books in it. In the philosophy...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:48 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
Bill Wimsatt is one of the philosophy of biology's underappreciated performers. Many of his takes on biology have influenced a great many people, including me. Here is an interview with him on his latest book Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:32 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
What with Hollywood archetypes of "animal rights activists" coming out of the woodwork lately, Ryan Gregory and Larry Moran pose the following question: And so I ask, on what basis do you draw the sharp moral line between "humans"...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:20 PM • 41 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 4, 2007
Category: General Science
[A guest post by palentologist and geologist Chris Nedin] It's taken the best part of 50 years but it's finally here! 50 years after the International Geophysical Year (1957-8) that took a global geophysical view of the globe, one...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:45 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Politics
I have a rule: a political party is usually the exact opposite of its name. Hence, the Liberal Party of Australia is not liberal, the National Party is not national, the Labor Party does not represent those who work,...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 2:39 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
November 3, 2007
Category: Creationism
Oh, I just know this is going to get enmeshed in arguments about framing, but I don't care. A new movement in the UK, home of democracy as we know it, involves scientists getting out there and active in...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:18 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Logic and philosophy
Sorry about that pun - it's been around for a while since Antony Flew, quandam philosopher and "Darwinian", announced he was converting to a kind of deism. Jon Pieret, who often comments on this blog when he should be...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:02 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Evolution
[This started as a discussion of the debate mentioned below. It got lost somewhere, and became me riffing on my favourite topics. Sorry.] I love it when people I know have a barny* in public, but it presents some...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:49 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
