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 Sessional Lecturer 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 in 2004, which he has worked into two books. Species Definitions: A Sourcebook (Peter Lang) will come out in 2008; Species: A History of an Idea (University of California Press) will appear, it is hoped, in early 2009. He is also interested in cultural evolution, philosophy of religion, Macintosh computers and his kids.
If anyone knows of a tenurable, or even medium term, job in philosophy of biology, let me know. Have library, will travel. The contract ran out ...
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...
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)
Conceptual Issues in Evolutionary Biology, 3rd Edition (Bradford Books)
My personal page is here:
The previous instantiation of this blog is accessible here.
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Posted on August 15, 2007 1:10 AM • 19 Comments •
It's a largish PDF, about 81Mb, and this is only a temporary site until I get the proper files to Archive.Org for assembly and OCR.... Huxley referred to him as "that honest hodman of science", and he was responsible (I am told) more than anyone else, for the new fashion of keeping aquariums.
Posted on May 16, 2007 7:31 AM • 9 Comments •
Chris Mooney, who is too damned young and handsome, was in Sydney yesterday (well for a few days before that) so I decided the decent thing was to fly down from Brisbane to meet him, given that he travelled across some small bit of water to get here.... I bought a copy of his book, The Republican War on Science which I hadn't previously seen in stores here (republican has a different connotation in Australia), or at least not when the author was available to write a nice dedication.
Posted on April 24, 2007 10:34 AM • 7 Comments •
Coulter's book Godless isn't what it seems to be - an ill-informed rehash of tired old creationist bafflegab. Instead, it's a Sokalesque hoax designed to make conservatives reassess their own rationality and to expose the idiocy of intelligent design!
Posted on April 7, 2007 10:39 PM • 2 Comments •
As I recently mentioned Grene's book with Depew, it's worth noting an interview with her by The Believer (Benjamin Cohen) here. It explains some of the themes in the book.
Posted on February 25, 2007 12:08 AM • 2 Comments •
Last year and the year before I helped teach Philosophy of the Life Sciences here, and we used, respectively, one textbook and no textbook. Right now I'm reading a rather marvellous book, that would have set me up years in advance of where I am now, so this got me thinking (it's the job description, you know): what are the textbooks on Philosophy of Biology, and what are their respective merits?
Posted on February 23, 2007 6:35 AM • 6 Comments •
"The Chronologers' Quest: The Search for the Age of the Earth" (Patrick Wyse Jackson), gives a nice and comprehensive account of the project to date the earth, and the means used to do it, from early modern theological approaches like the famous Ussher's (and Jackson has some corrections to make to Gould's essay on the topic), through to the guy who finally achieved it.... After Steno and Hooke tried to establish methodological protocols for geology, there were a number of developments in geology, leading to the theories of Werner, who thought all was caused by the actions of water (Neptunism), and Desmarest, who thought it was due to the actions of volcanoes (Vulcanism).
Posted on February 15, 2007 1:59 AM • 3 Comments •
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