History and Philosophy (often of Science)
jlynch | May 2, 2009The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine is a sham concocted by Merck and Elsevier. See here and here. I'm sure there are some sort of ethical issues here.
Update (5/3): Janet and Isis have more on this. Janet notes:
Myself, I'm not really moved by the claim that publishing standards were so different 6 years ago that Elsevier has clean hands here. It's pretty obvious from this response that Elsevier was happy to take money from Merck to make something journal-like, trading on Elsevier's reputation as a publisher of proper journals. And the "no plans to look further into the matter…
jlynch | April 24, 2009
In the past I have argued that historians of science probably need to get more involved with the fight for good science education. Michael Barton has brought my attention to historian Abigail Lustig giving testimony before the Texas Board of Education.
jlynch | April 20, 2009My recent talk at the Sam Nobel Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is now available online on iTunes as a podcast. Here is the link to SNOMNH's podcast feed.
So settle down with a fine beverage and watch me for an hour or so. Feel free to comment below. Oh, and here are the slides:
jlynch | April 12, 2009PZ is reporting that John Maddox - former editor of Nature - has died at the age of 84. Like PZ, I remember him for his review of Rupert Sheldrake's New Age garbage ("morphic resonance" *shudder*). As commentators over at Pharyngula also note, he was responsible for bringing James Randi on board to study the bogus claims of Jacques Benveniste.
The skeptical community has lost a good friend.
jlynch | April 11, 2009Adam Goldstein has a post over at the Evolution: Education & Outreach blog which discusses a forthcoming paper by Genie Scott and Glenn Branch (both of the NCSE). Scott & Branch follow Olivia Judson in calling for the abandonment of the imprecise term "Darwinism". This is certainly something I support, having echoed the idea in talks over the past few years. While the term has a certain historical and philosophical utility, it is practically useless as a descriptor for modern evolutionary biology. The term "Darwinist" is equally as useless. (I should add that my objection to the terms…
jlynch | March 31, 2009Sadly, to the DI, this is what counts as the utterance of a "serious scholar who knows what he's saying:"
Evolutionary theory is at odds with itself: It cannot accept that man is a special being, raised above all others in evolutionary history, and it cannot deny that only man is capable of science, which allows him to transcend his animal selfishness. In closing, I note that I have made no reference to religion but only brought out the inner contradiction of Darwinism.
Mansfield should stick to political philosophy, methinks. If he honestly thinks this is "the inner contradiction of…
jlynch | March 24, 2009The following was posted to the mailing list for the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB) by Dick Burian. I felt it worth reposting here.
Marjorie Grene passed away March 16 at age 98 after a brief illness. Marjorie Glicksman Grene, born Dec. 13, 1910, was an important historian of philosophy (with books on Aristotle, Descartes, and various existentialist philosophers), epistemologist (with a special emphasis on perception and the contextual relations of knowers to the world around them) and philosopher of science, especially biology, on…
jlynch | March 23, 2009Or at least it did in Darwin's day. See here.
"Thanks to the discovery, historians now have the exact date of Darwin's arrival at the university - January 26th, 1828 - as well as a huge assortment of details which will enable them to reconstruct his undergraduate life as never before."
jlynch | March 17, 2009John Wilkins has informed me that Marjorie Grene, the noted historian and philosopher of biology, died of cancer yesterday. I was just using her wonderful The Philosophy of Biology: An Episodic History yesterday while preparing a class.
jlynch | March 11, 2009Over at Uncommon Descent (no link provided due to censorship of comments), Denyse O'Leary is urging "Darwinists" to "divorce" The Descent of Man because not to do so is to support "Darwin's racism" and to thus support racism today.
I'm wondering if O'Leary actually ever read Descent and followed Darwin's logic. I know, I know, it's a big book, and Denyse may not have the attention span to handle all that fuddy-duddy Victorian prose but she needs to do so before yammering on. Then she may want to read some of the historical literature on the subject. She claims to be a journalist, so I'm…
jlynch | March 9, 2009Joe Cain and Michael Ruse have edited a volume, Descended from Darwin: Insights into American Evolutionary Studies 1925-1950, that has been published by the American Philosophical Society. Thanks to a grant from the APS, the complete volume is available for free at Cain's website. Some really interesting papers from a bunch of folks I know well. As Cain notes:
This volume began at a conference, held 22â23 October 2004 at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. The main focus was on evolutionary studies in America before, during, and after the famous âevolutionary synthesisâ…
jlynch | March 6, 2009This being the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth - and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his masterwork - many folks seem to have the goal of reading Origin for the first time. Generally speaking the first edition of 1859 (or the second of 1860) is taken as the best edition to begin with - in later editions Darwin muddies his ideas in response to critics and it becomes increasingly difficult to clearly delineate what “Darwinism” entails.
David Quammen has produced a very nice edition of Origin that relies on the first edition for its text but supplements it with extracts from The…
jlynch | February 28, 2009
Apparently Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennett debated a week ago at a meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. An anonymous individual live-blogged it somewhat hyperbolically (“The tension between the titans fills the room”) but the account is worth a read, even if it is clear that the blogger is biased towards Plantinga. Apparently Plantinga attempted to defend Behe and Dennett slapped him around for that.
Short anonymous blogger: Dennett was snarky, nasty and didn’t take Plantinga seriously.
That’s the sort of thing that would get PZ’s blood boiling!…
jlynch | February 20, 2009I gave two talks yesterday. The first was at a luncheon for ASUâs chapter of Sigma Xi. A small crowd of largely retired scientists and engineers heard me give the same talk I gave in Norman last week. Naturally, given the comparative size of the audience (400+ versus 16) the dynamic was different and Iâm not sure folks really got what I was saying.
I spent the early evening at Science Cafe over at the Arizona Science Center discussing "Evolution and Faith Revisited: Can the two be reconciled?" After presenting a brief set of talking points (which I had hoped the audience would pick up on),…
jlynch | February 16, 2009Some folks have been asking to see the slides from my talk last week at OU. They're a little opaque without my commentary, but here they are:
I'll be giving a very similar talk at ASU on Friday for Sigma Xi.
jlynch | February 13, 2009Not a bad article in the Norman Transcript which is apparently a fairly conservative paper. It will be interesting to see what happens in the comment thread over the next few hours.
jlynch | February 12, 2009
You probably already know that today is the bicentennial of Darwinâs birthday. What you may not know is that Iâm giving a talk tonight (7pm) at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Natural History Museum on âWas there a Darwinian Revolution?â It is the open address for the University of Oklahomaâs âDarwin 2009â celebrations.
If youâre in the area, do drop along. Later on in the week, I may get around to posting slides.
jlynch | February 4, 2009February is going to be a busy month for me. Sunday I leave for Oklahoma where I will be giving the lead-off public lecture for their Darwin 2009 Celebration. I will be speaking on the 12th at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on the topic of “Was There A Darwinian Revolution?” Any Sooner readers should feel free to come along and introduce themselves.
While in Norman, I’ll also be teaching a four-day intensive course on Darwin for the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program, the syllabus for which is here. While there will be some lectures, the meat and potatoes of the…