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.
March 31, 2008
Category: Evolution
While we're on the topic of animals that act like humans, consider this very sad, very famous case: Nim Chimpsky. Raised to be a human boy, when the funds ran out and Nim got to the age equivalent of...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:15 PM • 10 Comments •
Category: General Science
So we're all such cosmopolitan nerds, blogging away... here's a guy (a friend of mine, actually) who has been doing a regular web column on Southern Hemisphere Astronomy for ten years. Give it up please for the well-bearded over-educated...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:49 AM • •
March 30, 2008
Category: General Science
Watch the video under the fold, from Chang Mai in Thailand. There's a moment where you realise what the elephant is representing, and a shock that comes when you see that it is representing something. I don't know if...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 8:42 PM • 30 Comments •
March 28, 2008
Category: General Science
Ernst Rutherford, the "father" of nuclear physics, once airily declared "In science there is only physics. All the rest is stamp collecting". By this he meant that the theory of physics is the only significant thing in science. Such...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:29 PM • 21 Comments •
March 27, 2008
Category: History
My friend and colleague Neil Levy has inaugurated the first edition of a journal devoted to a new field, Neuroethics, the first edition of which is available to all for free here. Neil has a convincing introductory editorial, arguing...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:09 PM • 8 Comments •
March 25, 2008
Category: Biodiversity
Okay, so it's the Wilkins Ice Shelf, but it's even more important than news about me. The 6000 square mile (15,540 km2) ice shelf named for Sir Hubert Wilkins, the famous Australian Antarctic explorer (and very possibly some kind...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 10:21 PM • 6 Comments •
March 24, 2008
Category: Creationism
I once sat across the table from Alex Rosenberg, a well known philosopher, who argued persuasively that one cannot be both a Christian and accept natural selection. I think Alex intended this as a reductio for Christianity, as natural...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 7:03 PM • 77 Comments •
Category: Creationism
This is a nice review in New Scientist, obviously "framed" more in sorrow and confusion than in anger, which ends with Throughout the entire experience, Maggie and I couldn't help feeling that the polarised audience in the theater was...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 5:23 PM • •
Category: Creationism
So here's a neo-Thomist talking about species, and not getting it due to (i) prior metaphysical commitments, and (ii) not understanding Aristotle - dude, he never called anything a species, not in the biological sense. Eidos and genos were...
Posted by John S. Wilkins at 4:26 AM • 35 Comments •
