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Evolving Thoughts

One man's struggle against impermanence

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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 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...

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January 30, 2008

Sky pilot

Category: Humor

Anyone else read this and immediately think of Eric Burdon singing "sky pilot"?...

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Vale Chesh

Category: Administrative

For a long time, I thought that animals were pretty much as Descartes thought - largely unreasoning organic machines. This morning, my teacher on animal communications died. Her name was Chesh, and she was 17 and a half. She...

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January 27, 2008

Who should be president?

Category: Politics

And why would an Australian care? It's another country, so what business is it of mine? Well, apart from the fact that whoever is US president affects the rest of the world (and historically the best party for Australian...

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If evolution were a religion...

Category: Humor

Given that the antievotees often declare evolution a religion (because after all, their view is purely based on wishful thinking and so they want to claim that everybody's views are), I got to thinking. What would the books of...

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January 26, 2008

Nature makes no leaps...

Category: History

Reacting to Jerry Coyne's guest blog on The Loom, Brian Switek at Laelaps discusses, among other things, the objection to Darwin's theories that Huxley put forward, both in personal correspondence and in print: The only objections that have occurred...

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January 25, 2008

Why wasn't I told?

Category: Administrative

A passing reference to Language Log has introduced me to an excellent blog. For instance, this well-balanced post on hate speech. Why didn't someone notify me of it before?...

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January 24, 2008

Del.icio.us Evolving Thoughts

Category: Administrative

We got delicioused, for the Basic Concepts Post, and wow, scores of links and (I hope) new readers. Some of the referrals [UPDATED]:...

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Measuring extinctions

Category: Biodiversity

In 1972, David Raup published an influential paper on taxonomic diversity during the Phanerozoic. In that paper, he estimated extinction rates based on the number of fossil families and genera for the period and before and after. The idea...

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January 23, 2008

Research blogging goes live

Category: General Science

You'll recall that we had a new logo and link for Blogging Peer Reviewed Research. This is now rebadged and has become Research Blogging. It will aggregate and feed the posts on peer reviewed research....

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January 21, 2008

Happenings

Category: Administrative

So, I just found out that I'm teaching this semester, which is a comfort (money will come in, and we can eat) and a pain (I am going to Arizona in March, so we will have to sort out...

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January 19, 2008

On, well, everything

Category: Humor

This conjoins a number of themes of late: poetry, postmodernism, and no doubt popery (Latin anyway)... Two poems by A. D. Godley:...

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A lucky man

Category: Fiction

... sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler – Robert Frost It was a typical hot and humid summer's day, so I entered a nice dark bluestone pub, hoping the dark would offer some cool and...

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January 18, 2008

Funny philosophers

Category: Humor

It is widely understood that philosophers aren't as a rule, intentionally funny. Partly this is because we are often old fogies whose sense of humour was formed in the early Jurassic. Mostly it's because when you deal with the...

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January 17, 2008

Images on evolution outreach

Category: Creationism

Colin Purrington has a nice set of publicly available images for use in pro-science talks. Go check 'em out....

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Why not information?

Category: Evolution

OK, so by now a number of you are either quite puzzled or are up in arms about this notion of mine that genes aren't information. First I'll recap and then make some general philosophical and historical points....

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A poem to remember - meme

Category: Logic and philosophy

Shelley at Restrospectacle gives a poem she learned in school, an excellent piece by A. E. Housman, So I got to thinking - what poem sticks with me? Is it the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by Eliot,...

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A plea for the pope

Category: History

This isn't something I would often write, but I think that the recent protest against the Pope speaking at the secular university La Sapienza in Rome is misplaced. Critics say that the Pope, when he was of more humble...

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January 16, 2008

Is information essential for life? No.

Category: General Science

A recent New Scientist article poses the often-posed question in the title. The answer is mine. Forgive me as I rant and rave on a bugbear topic......

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January 15, 2008

ROUS's? I don't believe they exist.

Category: Evolution

Anyone who knows the film The Princess Bride knows what happens next. Westley gets hit hard by a rodent about the size of a pitbull. However, it seems that ROUS's (Rodents of Unusual Size) actually may have existed, in...

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Harry Potter, you see, is the wrong kind of magician

Category: History

In an article on the Catholic or otherwise virtues of Harry Potter (didn't we do all this a while back), L'Osservatore Romano has an article claiming that Harry Potter is the wrong kind of hero. Why is that? Not,...

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January 13, 2008

Students publishing

Category: General Science

TR Gregory at Scientific Blogging asks why advisors would encourage their students to publish. One of the reasons is: Most of the graduate and undergraduate students with whom I have worked directly have been quite excited by the possibility...

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Censureship

Category: Politics

Lawyers shouldn't determine who gets to read what. Religions shouldn't determine who gets to think what. But the worst combination is when religions use lawyers to stop criticism of their actions and beliefs. Scientology, the money making scam purveyed...

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January 12, 2008

Slowing down

Category: Administrative

I am blogging lightly while I write madly in Real World™ conditions - some deadlines approach, such as grant deadlines, paper deadlines, book review deadlines and editing deadlines. That said, I will pop up for a bit occasionally, but...

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January 10, 2008

Verily, who is in the primary position

Category: Humor

A classic Abbott and Costello skit, done in Elizabethan English. Video below the fold....

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Is there a physicist in the house?

Category: General Science

One of my colleagues just raised a point I hadn't thought of vis á vis Special Relativity. I had always thought that an observer on a photon would not experience time. My colleague suggests that each frame of reference...

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January 8, 2008

Stuff, not nonsense

Category: Evolution

Some things I spotted today.....

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January 7, 2008

Is postmodernism retreating?

Category: Creationism

Rob Helpy at Big Monkey, Helpy Chalk, has a post on what postmodernism was and why it came about. In it, he says he thinks it is a dying fad. Is this true?...

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In the news

Category: Politics

Let's see... what's happening in the world today? Kenya is in turmoil and thousands are displaced and in danger of death by disease, starvation or tribal feuds. Religious moneymaking scam Scientology is accused of threatening those who leave it...

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January 6, 2008

On evolved morality

Category: Logic and philosophy

Larry Arnhart has a post up on how Huck Finn's moral quandary about turning in Jim, the escaped slave, as good religion said he should (at the time), when he has come to know and admire Jim as a...

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I hate a barnacle...

Category: Evolution

...said Charles Darwin, more than any man ever has. He should have, too - he spent seven years of his life working up the first encyclopedic monograph on the group. But that pales into insignificance compared to Alan Southward,...

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January 4, 2008

Nice genetics quip

Category: General Science

Microsoft Word’s “Track Changes” and Endnote are synthetic lethals. From The Futile Cycle. "A synthetic pair of genes are two gene variants that alone are fine, but when combined into the same organism, cause it to die." Why? When...

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January 3, 2008

Elvis is still dead. Oh, and evolution is a fact.

Category: Creationism

Some press releases get the right money quote: "The bottom line is that the world is round, humans evolved from an extinct species and Elvis is dead," Weissmann said. "This survey is a wake-up call for anyone who supports...

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Roundup

Category: Evolution

Some bloggable items not worth a post on their own:...

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What must a citizen know?

Category: Politics

The previous Australian junta introduced a "citizenship test" for those wanting to become naturalised Aussies. It includes such gems as who Don Bradman was, who wrote a song that isn't even officially our anthem (Waltzing Matilda - Tom Wait's...

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January 2, 2008

Darwinian gardening

Category: Humor

For some time now I have told anyone who didn't get away fast enough that I am a Darwinian Gardener: any plant that survives my total lack of care deserves to be there until it gets in my way....

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Australia to impose "opt-out" filtering

Category: Politics

I'm going to have to start a "freedom watch" thread, I can see. Australia, under the ALP government, is to impose an "opt-out" internet filtering system on all lSPs, leading to the question asked by IT-Wire: what happens if...

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Are you being watched?

Category: Politics

Since I am divesting myself of the occasional political whine, here's another. The US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center and the UK-based Privacy International have assessed over 70 countries for their protection of privacy, both online and generally. The worst...

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January 1, 2008

COSMOS - a cool magazine

Category: Administrative

Today I received my copy of COSMOS (not Cosmo, you perves!) in which my article appeared. I have to say (and not just because they showed the good taste to print me) that this is one of the better...

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Changing minds

Category: Evolution

The Grauniad has a puff piece on what has changed the minds of "the intellectual elite". It seems Alan Alda is one of them in virtue of his screen roles... still I have to like his comment: Until I...

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NYE: the aftermath

Category: Creationism

OK, so the next door party finished about 1.30, but the family disputes finished about 5 am, so instead of thinking, I'm going to let others think for me, and round up a few New Years Day links......

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