evolvingthoughts

Grrlscientist just pointed out that MDs are threatening to boycott The Lancet, because Reed Elsevier, the publisher, supports weapons fairs, including manufacturers of cluster bombs. This is a worry. Elsevier publishes around 40 journals that have a philosophy component. Perhaps philosophers,…

Here is a list of Basic Concept posts in Biology. Recently Added: The Pharyngula Stage by PZ Myers at Pharyngula; Biomes VII: Temperate Forest by Jeremy Bruno at The Voltage Gate; Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam, by Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority Botany Development The…

OK, I recently recommended Medlar Comfits, but I thought I'd mention a few other blogs and sites I've come across lately. George Bristow's Secret Freezer is a bird watcher's site of great grace and interest. Martin Collinson, near Aberdeen, does history, morphology (beautiful plumage!) and all…

I can't believe I didn't think of this first: Customer: Hello. I wish to complain about this so-called 'scientific theory' what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very establishment. Salesman: Oh yes, 'Intelligent Design'. What, uh... what's wrong with it? Customer: I'll tell you what's…

Some more or less random links that I am grouping under the epistemology of philosophy of science. For those who have not reached Level 9 or higher in the Illuminati, "epistemology" has nothing to do with getting drunk, but with how knowledge is acquired (episteme means "understanding, skill or…

Parents, don't let your kids drink soft drinks (except root beer): Root beer may be 'safest' soft drink for teeth Exposing teeth to soft drinks, even for a short period of time, causes dental erosion—and prolonged exposure can lead to significant enamel loss. Root beer products, however, are non-…

And can somebody explain in non-mathematical terms, why E8 is so important?

It is, as JBS Haldane noted, a fact the whole world knows, which he called "Aunt Jobiska's Theorem" after Edward Lear's poem: The Pobble who has no toes Was placed in a friendly Bark, And they rowed him back, and carried him up, To his Aunt Jobiska's Park. And she made him a feast at his earnest…

Courtesy of Moselio Schechter's blog Small Things Considered, is a new report, downloadable in PDF, from the National Institutes of Health, together with the American Society for Microbiology, on research into bacteria, entitled Basic Research on Bacteria. The Essential Frontier. The money quote…

I have an ambivalent relationship with the medical profession. On the one hand - my left - I lost a finger because a general practitioner refused to investigate a wart, that turn cancerous. On the other, I think medicine is one of this civilisation's greatest achievements, at least when it is made…

As a native of Victoria - the real one, not that Canadian knockoff - I heartily recommend this wonderfully illustrated blog on Gippsland, in eastern Victoria: Ben Cruachan. Makes me pine for the land of mild weather and lovely wilderness.

Courtesy of the inimitable Jason Grossman, who passes such things along to me, comes this announcement from the even more inimitable John van Whye who is responsible for the Darwin online project: Friends of Mr Darwin may be interested to learn that images of his diary or 'Journal' (DAR158) now…

Most historians of evolutionary biology have contended that Darwin did not believe that species were real. Instead, they claim, he believed species were arbitrarily delimited from each other, and the species was nothing more than a more distinct variety. Thus, according to Mayr, Darwin did not…

I remember when we had 80,000 genes. I really do. Then along came the Human Genome Project and suddenly we had 30,000 genes, hardly more than your average mouse. Suddenly again, we now have a mere 18,000 genes (well 18,308, but I don't think that will stand for long). At this rate, we'll all have…

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. Given the recent slurs on evolutionary theory as the foundation for Nazism and the holocaust,…

Funny Slogan of the Week No. This isn't funny. This is as true as it gets... This is from the ACT UP protest against Joint Chief of Staff General Pace's bigoted remarks: Via Mike the Mad Biologist

Many people think we silverbacks are kind of dumb - interested only in sex and repelling competing males. Of course, these are important, but so is philosophy. Most of you just don't get it. But a correspondent has sent me this evidence that they get it in Copenhagen... Apparently, according…

Origins of life research, or etiobiology as I like to call it, is an odd discipline. It is rarely done under any direct funding, instead being done as a side effect of other, mostly molecular, biological research, especially since NASA shut down the bulk of its Astrobiology Program under massive…

So, lots of people are talking about spirituality. What do I think it is, if anything? Below the fold. I'm a naturalist. This means, in a philosophical context (i.e., neither a scientific nor a religious context) that I think that phenomena can be given a naturalised account. I think this also…

After the sermon comes, as we all know, the benediction. I just wanted to say that I welcome religious believers here. I want you to read me, and the other Science Bloggers, whether they are aggressively atheist or assertively theist, bored, or just good mannered, because discussion is what it's…

One of the longstanding problems with fitness landscapes is that they are mostly abstract and arbitrary constructs used for conceptualisation rather than actual explanation. Things have changed. Now a paper in Nature shows that fitness landscapes empirically measured show accessible routes of…

Ordinarily, sermons should be reserved for holy days, such as when football and cricket is being played, but this is occasioned by some Scibling conflicts... When I were a young lad, me ol' mam told me to keep a civil tongue in me 'ead. [Actually, she told me something else, but this is a family…

Is the plant [Thalictrum lucidum] sufficiently distinct from T. flavum? It seems to me a daughter of time. [Planta, an satis distincta, a T. flavo? Videtur temporis filia. Species plantarum 1753] "The Daughter of Time" (Josephine Tey)" was also the title of a wonderful detective story. My new…

OK, day 4, and I'm still not smoking (Hi, I'm John... Hi John). This is attempt number 247 or so, but one thing that has motivated this attempt is the danger of passive smoking to my as yet unsullied son, who lives with me (and has a sensible attitude to smoking - it's bad, and you should stop it…

Carl Linné, or as we know him from his Latinised name, Carolus Linnaeus, turns 300 this year, on May 23rd. And Nature has a series of articles on the famous Swede in this week's edition, as well as a slew of other interesting papers. I don't know, nothing blogworthy comes along for months, and…

Marine General, Peter Pace, expressed the official view of the US militaryhis personal opinion that gays are immoral, and shouldn't be allowed to fight. Given that the Australian armed forces, and probably the British, Spanish and other allies allow gays in their military, it seems to me Gen. Pace…

So, we're discussing, in our deep dark headquarters and in between scheming to take over the world, who should play us when the Hollywood film comes out. See below the fold for the choice made for me... It so has to be Tom Selleck. The younger one, of course.

Here's an interesting paper: it suggests that major catastrophes need not always lead to immediate extinction pulses, but that there can be a lag of as much as 2 million years (in the case of the rise of the Panama isthmus). In hindsight this is not so surprising. Ecosystems generate a lot of…

No, not the methodological stuff. That's boring (which is why I have a grant application out right now on that topic). This. A roundup and prospectus on what the degradation of biodiversity is leading us to. Also, see the interview with Peter Raven, here.