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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.
December 31, 2007
Category: Administrative
It is midnight on January 1 here in Australia. There's a loud party next door (young folks, heh). So I hope you all have a good year and thanks for reading me in 2007....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:00 AM • 27 Comments •
December 30, 2007
Category: Philosophy of Science
This is a field in which I am largely ignorant, so I will just report it and leave the commenters to interpret. Collider blog has a discussion of an idea reported by Charm &c. in a paper at arXiv...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:55 AM • 11 Comments •
Category: History
The New York Times has a long overdue article on the stupidity of airport security measures for those flying to, within or in markets affected by the United States post-9/11. Pointing out that the security screening at airports in...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 4:13 AM • 9 Comments •
December 29, 2007
Category: Creationism
Henry Gee reviews the Golden Compass, and comes up with largely the same conclusions I would have had I been as insightful as he. A quote: It’s a long time since I read the book, The Northern Lights, on...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:05 PM • 14 Comments •
Category: General Science
One of the things about being a Mac user, for 20-odd years now, is that you just like your corporate hero. Sure, they stuffed up on a number of hardware releases, and their delay in getting a multitasking OS...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:16 PM • 13 Comments •
December 28, 2007
Category: History
Found in an old manuscript in the ruins of an old university: Well this year has been pretty much the same as those that went before. We planted crops, most of which failed because we only had the poverty...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:26 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Creationism
Just to demonstrate that it is not only the Christians who have their religious fundamentalists opposing science, here's a piece that claims that the Vedas are the source of all true scientific knowledge. OK, guys, inventing zero was cool,...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 3:42 AM • 25 Comments •
December 27, 2007
Category: Biodiversity
Greg Laden is reporting that Rwanda is taxing companies that use gorillas in their advertising, in order to pay for their conservation. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are an albino silverback in Australia, this only applies to Rwandan companies....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:47 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Logic and philosophy
The online journal Episteme has a special issue out on conspiracy theories. Examples include God as a conspiracy theory, the 9/11 WTC "controlled demolition" theory and questions of rationality of those who engage in them. Late note: This is...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:53 PM • 2 Comments •
Category: Religion
Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated, probably by Islamist extremists. While no saint, she clearly stood for democratisation in Pakistan, and all hell is likely to break out there now. Today, I saw The Golden Compass, after reading the book...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:08 AM • 24 Comments •
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