John Wilkins
evolvingthoughts
Posts by this author
October 17, 2008
Melvyn Bragg, always an informed and interesting interviewer, has a podcast up from BBC Radio of an interview on the topic of vitalism in biology. Here the experts chosen are Patricia Fara, Fellow of Clare College and Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at…
October 15, 2008
It occurred to me that some readers may be interested in the grant project, so I put the details beneath the fold. I am funded for an Australian Postdoctoral (APD) research fellowship for three years.
DP0984826 Dr JS Wilkins; Prof PE Griffiths
Approved Project Title: Contemporary scientific…
October 14, 2008
... those weeds won't ever go away.
The inimitable Siris notes the problem with the myth that the US Electoral College is a restraint upon democracy (when it makes presidential elections possible where previously they weren't, so how can it be a restraint?). The article in the New Yorker he…
October 12, 2008
As I recall it, Australian history was deadly dull. Most of it could have been taught in a single half-year, with time to cover the second world war to spare. That's what happens when a very few individuals live on a continent for (at that time) less than two centuries, most of which is tied up…
October 11, 2008
A while ago, almost exactly two years back, I asked Is the Bush Administration fascist? I think we can now safely say it is, at least in the style of Mussolini and Franco. Now Echidne of the Snakes has a series of articles up on whether the Republicans have so poisoned American politics that…
October 10, 2008
Ever wondered why it's "red states"? Because it's the "red right". And as one of my favourite Australian lyricists has it, this is because of the red right hand:
Take a little walk to the edge of town, go across the tracksWhere the viaduct looms, like a bird of doom as it shifts and cracksWhere…
October 9, 2008
As some of you may have figured out by now, my overarching Evil Plan is to get people thinking about their basic assumptions. Even when those people are the "good guys" and free thinkers. So in service of that I am giving a public talk for the Secular Freethinkers society on Tuesday next (details…
October 6, 2008
I get so tired of comments like this:
The Grim Reaper is taking a rest, and inherited differences in the ability to withstand cold, starvation or disease no longer power Darwin's machine. Those who die from such killers do so when they are so old that natural selection has lost interest.
Right…
October 5, 2008
But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgement concerning the origin of the whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be…
October 5, 2008
The two space shuttle disasters were due to political and military interference in the design of the shuttle. On the one hand, the various senators wanted parts of the shuttle manufactured in places like, of all states, Utah, necessitating the solid fuel segment design that failed catastrophically…
October 5, 2008
... here, at IAmYourGod. Personally, I suspect God actually wants all those atheists and agnostics, because he values critical thinking.
October 5, 2008
My favourite gardener, the Darwinian Gardener, gives another interview in the Florida News-Journal with which I can only whole-heartedly agree. One can work in a garden as a Darwinian gardener if one (i) needs to reclaim a driveway or path to the front door for one's own purposes, (ii) has a light…
October 3, 2008
... by GumbyTheCat, with just the right amount of snark.
Late note: See the critical commentary by Galley Proofs.
October 2, 2008
Today I finalised my manuscript, printed it out, annotated it, made sure all the figures were there, that they had the least ugly photos of me, burned the CD, and ticked all the boxes. Tomorrow, Species: A history of the idea physically travels to University of California Press, where they will do…
October 1, 2008
In the light of the ongoing automation of impact factors, usually by somewhat opaque algorithms or procedures, a number of editors of various biomedical jounrals have asked to be taken off a new European reference index. I have taken the liberty of formatting the text below the fold in paragraphs…
September 28, 2008
Readers know I think religion is post-agricultural, which raises some difficulties if we find evidence of organised religious behaviours before the onset of agriculture. The case in point here being Göbeli Tepe. Now a recent model of the process of cereal domestication has set back the beginnings…
September 28, 2008
I note with alarums that nobody has nominated any of my posts for the forthcoming Open Laboratory 2008 book that Bora and others are preparing. Maybe my quality has dropped, but if you think there's one worth including, do nominate it using the button at the bottom left.
September 28, 2008
It all began with Larry Arnhart giving a "Darwinian" account of the case for financial bailouts. Then David Sloan Wilson rejected the argument from the Invisible Hand. Then Massimo Pigliucci entered the fray. What's at issue?
There are two basic extremes in economics: laissez faire and command…
September 27, 2008
If any of my readers are good knitters, check this out:
The pattern, not the girl. Preverts!
Hat tip: Colin Purrington
September 27, 2008
Some threat display has publicly occurred between two primates vying for the alpha male position of a large troop of feral, introduced, great apes in north America. It is examined here. Apparently one of the contenders failed to make eye contact, which is a dead giveaway of probable loss to the…
September 25, 2008
I can't believe I saw this before Bora did:
Hat tip the heekster on talk.origins
September 24, 2008
Oddly enough, this doesn't bother me in the slightest...
Your result for The Which Discworld Character Am I Test...
Susan Sto Helit
As Death's granddaughter (a long story, which you greatly dislike), you inherited his ultimate practicality and lack of fear. In fact, boogeymen and other childhood…
September 24, 2008
SPECIAL NOTE:This page and its subordinate pages will no longer be updated. See the new page at my new blog for the live version, and change all your subscriptions. Thank you.
This is a list of the Basic Concepts posts being put up by Science Bloggers and others. It will be updated and put to the…
September 22, 2008
There's a guest post at the Panda's Thumb by myrmidon Alex Wild on the new "primitive" ant just reported. Go read it.
September 22, 2008
Science blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, the impact of which is slowly becoming clear. Gone are the days when an albino silverback philosopher was a top ranking science blogger (I am quite happy to be a philosophy of science blogger, and not take credit for anything I didn't earn). I…
September 21, 2008
Many people are confused about what counts as a fallacy, including teachers of critical reasoning. Opponents of science often accuse pro-science writers of "the fallacy of authority" or "the ad hominem fallacy" when they are noted for having made silly and false claims before. I thought some words…
September 19, 2008
Actually I'm not. The Sea of Faith In Australia crowd are very nice and easy to get on with folk, and many of them are your garden variety humanists, atheists and skeptics. Lawrence Krauss is a very nice guy with a good patter in anti-ID; nothing I haven't heard before but, and this surprised and…
September 18, 2008
Okay, so in the AM I am off to drizzly Melbourne, my old home town, to address a conference on the implications of the project of naturalising religion, especially in terms of evolution, to an audience that may, or may not be religious. So if you never hear from me again, I was probably burned at…