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.
February 28, 2008
Category: Administrative
Janet asks what others have asked - what is science blogging all about, after a bully in the schoolyard taunted us Sciencebloggers. Her questions (and her answers) are very like mine, so I will steal them, below the fold....
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:56 PM • 7 Comments •
Category: Evolution
Today marks the final day of the month in which, 150 years ago, a naturalist in what is now Indonesia wrote a letter to Charles Darwin in which he gave a theoretical account of how types can evolve by...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:44 AM • 7 Comments •
February 27, 2008
Category: Creationism
Chaim Potok, I think, once wrote that people either love the Jews too much or hate them too much. I hope I do neither, but I found this particular point of view by Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman a brilliant example...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:54 PM • 27 Comments •
Category: Administrative
Well, actually the weather in Tempe, Arizona, seems to be very much like the weather here in Brisbane, but that's where I'm going. For a couple of weeks. Also in Salt Lake City. So blogging shall be sparse unless...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:40 AM • 1 Comments •
February 25, 2008
Category: Humor
I suppose you all have heard of the recent trade agreement between South Africa, Tibet, and the Netherlands, swapping cattle for birds, and known as the Gnu yak stork exchange... [I'm not to blame. I saw it on the...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:24 AM • 3 Comments •
Category: History
... a female deer. Oops, sorry, wrong thread. Anyway, a medievalist, goblinpaladin, has tagged me with a meme. Now I don't' get tagged a lot with memes, possibly because folk know I have published on them, both for and...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:37 AM • 10 Comments •
February 24, 2008
Category: Logic and philosophy
Welcome to this week's edition of Isms. In a couple of posts, Scibling Alex Palazzo of The Daily Transcript has given two quite distinct views of what biology is about: information, and mechanism. In the first he argues that...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:34 PM • 11 Comments •
Category: Humor
Are you a sad nerd, spending more time with your computer than with actual people? Do you think a great night is when you get a debate going in the comments of a Pharyngula post? Would you like to...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 9:49 PM • 7 Comments •
February 21, 2008
Category: History
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article discussing a study as to why there are so few conservative academics, in the light of the campaign by conservative activist David Horowitz to propose and "academic bill of rights". The...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 11:06 PM • 6 Comments •
PZ Myers 11.07.2009
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revere 11.07.2009
