More on black and white physics
Language Log has a very nice summary of the reasons why some holes are black, and some are white....Posted on July 14, 2008 7:57 AM • 1 Comments •
Evolving Thoughts
One man's struggle against impermanence
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Profile
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...
Recent Posts
- Busy, busy, busy
- Basic Concepts in Science: A list
- Why are there still monkeys?
- Fish can walk!
- Species: a history of the idea
- It was
3839 years ago today - On blogging while tenure tracking
- The Dark Knight
- Dr Horrible
- Species is a hard concept
Recent Comments
- Bob O'H on Online, about being online
- Susan Silberstein on Busy, busy, busy
- Crudely Wrott on Busy, busy, busy
- Brian English on Busy, busy, busy
- John S. Wilkins on Why are there still monkeys?
- John S. Wilkins on Busy, busy, busy
- John S. Wilkins on Why are there still monkeys?
- Brian English on Busy, busy, busy
- Jeremy on Why are there still monkeys?
- Allen Hazen on Why are there still monkeys?
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Blogroll
- Aetiology
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Books I'm reading
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)
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Other Information
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The previous instantiation of this blog is accessible here.
Race and politics:
Right there in black and white
If a black hole is where common sense is lost, is a white hole where we spew out absurdities? To say so seems like blackmail, which only yellow dogs employ, with a niggardly vocabulary. It's a red flag, I...Posted on July 10, 2008 10:52 PM • 10 Comments •
*sigh* More Haneef farce
here...Posted on July 10, 2008 8:34 AM • 1 Comments •
Another reason why the war on terrorism is a war on democratic freedom
The Scientific Misconduct blog has identified a case of censorship based on fear: Briefly, a postgraduate student (Rizwaan Sabir) was conducting research (into terrorism). He was arrested after downloading material (related to terrorism) from a US government website. I...Posted on May 28, 2008 3:19 AM • 14 Comments •
Pastorale
From Wiley: And while we're on the topic......Posted on May 12, 2008 2:50 AM • 4 Comments •
A good German site
Evilunderthesun is a German language blog that recently did two things: totally demolished the "Nazism was caused by Darwin" trope, with generous quoting of mich, and educated me that the word for April fool in German is Aprilschmerz, which...Posted on April 4, 2008 8:37 PM • 19 Comments •
Stein is right: Darwinism causes antisemitism
I have yet to see the film Expelled, because it hasn't come to Australia yet, but I have become absolutely convinced that Ben Stein is correct. Darwinism causes antisemitism. I have therefore conveniently listed all the cases known of...Posted on April 1, 2008 12:00 AM • 60 Comments •
Obama on race
So one of the most inspiring and intelligent political speeches of my time, comparable with Kennedy's, has been delivered while I was either in transit or sleeping (I can't work out which). I have read it, and I have...Posted on March 19, 2008 7:55 PM • 9 Comments •
The law, Sharia, and religious control
Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was...Posted on February 12, 2008 10:46 PM • 23 Comments •
The Haneef washup
Readers will know that I got very angry about the Haneef Affair, in which a muslim Indian doctor was accused of being a terrorist and deported by the improper abuse of power by the minister for immigration of the...Posted on February 1, 2008 8:35 PM • 3 Comments •
What must a citizen know?
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...Posted on January 3, 2008 10:38 PM • 12 Comments •
Haneef: the final chapter
Well the mills of God and the justice system grind exceeding fine, but they sometimes come up with the right conclusion. Haneef has been given back his visa, as was obviously going to happen from the beginning. Ex-minister Kevin...Posted on December 21, 2007 10:15 AM • 4 Comments •
Rudd, religion, and the body politic in Australia
As I watched the total collapse of the conservatives in the federal election, and the landslide of Labor wins, I mused......Posted on November 25, 2007 1:11 AM • 6 Comments •
A quote
From J. B. S. Haldane's 1932 The Causes of Evolution: ... I must ... discuss a fallacy which is, I think, latent in most Darwinian arguments, and which has been responsible for a good deal of poisonous nonsense which...Posted on October 31, 2007 2:16 AM • 2 Comments •
Another reason why the Howard government must go
They are now toadies of the Exclusive Brethren, who fund campaign advertisements for the Liberal Party. Add to this Cardinal George Pell's support, Catholic minister Tony Abbott's attempts to control who can use RU486 on an individual basis (i.e.,...Posted on October 15, 2007 9:51 AM • 28 Comments •
People or classes?
It seems that almost nobody can mention Jews without making an inadvertent or deliberate ass of themselves. Most recently, Richard Dawkins put his foot in it in this Guardian article. He said: When you think about how fantastically successful...Posted on October 10, 2007 2:06 AM • 35 Comments •
How to fix Iraq, and not invade Iran
There's been a lot of media spin and unthinking objections to the visit of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the US. He was called the "modern Hitler", for example. This strikes me as both unthinking and dangerous. Ahmadinejad is his...Posted on September 28, 2007 12:43 AM • 21 Comments •
Haneef again
Sorry to bother you all with internal Australian politics, but this has to be discussed. Now the minister for immigration is saying that the Australian Federal Police intercepted a chat room conversation in which Haneef was told to leave...Posted on July 31, 2007 5:28 AM • 21 Comments •
Haneef cleared
A short note - it looks like Haneef has been cleared of all charges and the political pressure on his arrest and detention has been criticised by civil rights lawyers. Good news, but I really hope further action is...Posted on July 27, 2007 7:31 AM • 13 Comments •
Indian terror suspect not really suspicious
In yet further evidence that due process is a bulwark against the arrogance and incompetence, not to say potential police statery, of intelligence agencies, it turns out that the core piece of evidence against Dr Haneef, the Indian doctor...Posted on July 20, 2007 3:08 AM • 11 Comments •
Australia goes Gitmo
An Indian doctor working in Queensland, where I live, whose cousin was involved in the failed bombing plot in the UK, was detained apparently because he lent his prepaid SIM card to the cousin. He was held without charge...Posted on July 18, 2007 6:06 AM • 12 Comments •
Lewes on Heredity, in 1856
I'm putting this up because I will use it to discuss the history of species definitions in a forthcoming talk. It's very interesting for a number of reasons, one of which is the species nominalism, and another that Lewes...Posted on June 22, 2007 1:43 AM • 2 Comments •
Greewald on Bush on Evil
A very thoughtful and interesting, dare I say almost philosophical, discussion of the Manichaean nature of the Bush Administration is in the present Salon here. A quote: The power to order people detained and imprisoned based solely on accusation...Posted on June 20, 2007 8:46 PM • 12 Comments •
Why did this woman die in ER?
Or because the US health system, and in particular this hospital, is so stretched that triage is by rapid prejudice rather than medical criteria? As a subsidiary question, how is it that people could ignore a screaming woman on the floor?
Posted on May 21, 2007 1:32 AM • 0 Comments •
Atheist rights
All people, including minor teens, have the right to express religious preferences – including atheism – different from any historic religious tradition without fear of reprisal from family, social or political group, tribe, church, or government.... Scientific Integrity: The nonreligious, like all citizens, have the right to expect that publicly-funded scientific research is carried out by scientific principles rather than religious ones, and that medical research and decisions should be informed by science and reason rather than religion.
Posted on April 14, 2007 11:43 PM • 10 Comments •
Well duh...
SYDNEY broadcaster Alan Jones' comments before the 2005 Cronulla riots were likely to have encouraged brutality and vilified people of Lebanese and Middle Eastern background, Australia's broadcasting regulator says.
Posted on April 10, 2007 10:59 AM • 1 Comments •
Once more on Hilali
The PM, the minister for Immigration, and the minister for Foreign Affairs, the leader of the Opposition and various other pollies have called for the mufti of Australia, Sheik al Hilali, to leave Australia.... They do not deserve punishment because Hilali has stupid ideas, and until and unless he is convicted of some crime, he should be left alone for his community to deal with as they see fit.
Posted on April 10, 2007 7:13 AM • 2 Comments •
Nietzsche and evolution
The Cafeteria is Closed has a very nice little discussion of whether Nietzsche was properly the foundation of German nationalism and anti-Semitism, answering, with documentary support, no to each claim.... But he does one thing, which Spencer also did, that disqualifies him from being a proper Darwinian, and which was rejected by Huxley, and implicit in the views of many others: he takes what is to be right.
Posted on March 17, 2007 10:51 PM • 11 Comments •
Philosopher threatened by Islamists
A French philosopher, and his family, have been threatened with death by Islamists for his criticising Islam as a religion of violence and hate, according to Agence France Presse. Details below the fold....Posted on October 1, 2006 4:17 PM • 10 Comments •
Darwin and the Holocaust 3: eugenics
The claim often made is that Darwin is the sine qua non of the eugenics that the Nazis used to justify their genocide.What I aim to do today is show that while it is true (and widely accepted) that Darwinism...Posted on September 3, 2006 1:16 AM • 16 Comments •
Darwin and the Holocaust 2: Christians and Jews
Well, we have established that the subhuman thesis is not of Darwinian origins, and made a start on showing that the eugenics thesis isn't either (more to come later), but while we're all waiting, Daily Kos has an interesting article...Posted on August 30, 2006 3:06 AM • 5 Comments •
Darwin and the Holocaust - what's the real story?
I won't comment on the execrable link made by that execrable TV show. Some things aren't worth the effort. But those whose minds aren't made up may still have a sneaking suspicion that somehow evolutionary theory was responsible for some...Posted on August 28, 2006 7:52 AM • 20 Comments •
Pro-Test, and the war on another kind of terrorism
When I was sixteen, I was rebelling against whatever society had got by getting stoned, generally screwing up, and eventually getting thrown out of high school six months before I graduated. Laurie Pycroft on the other hand, decided enough...Posted on June 11, 2006 12:06 AM • 14 Comments •
The human political animal
Suppose you come from Mars, freshly minted with your PhD degree in the ethology of terrestrial mammals, and you decide to study this ape species that uses language and technology. Suppose further it's about 10,000 years before now. What...Posted on June 9, 2006 12:45 PM • 0 Comments •
