History
evolvingthoughts | October 27, 2008
The NCSE has put up more of its content from it's excellent, if badly laid out, magazine Reports of the NCSE. As a result, one of my better pieces, on species concepts, is now up, with a list of what I at the time thought were the concepts in the modern literature, derived from Mayden's 1997 piece. I would revise the phylogenetic concepts somewhat, but the citations are still useful. Also go check out the revised NCSE website. It has lots of useful links about antievolutionism and evolution. And happy birthday to Genie...
terrasig | October 24, 2008From this press release:
It is with deepest sadness that North Carolina Central University announces the passing of photojournalist Alex Rivera [Alexander M Rivera, Jr]. Rivera, a nationally renowned and prominent photojournalist, established the public relations office at North Carolina Central University, and served as the office's first director.
"This is a sad day for NCCU", said Chancellor Charlie Nelms. "Not only was Mr. Rivera an integral part of the university's history, he made invaluable contributions to the world through his photography. He was a valued member of our community and…
evolvingthoughts | October 23, 2008
My favourite subject as an undergraduate was Historiography, which covered historical method and the nature of history. I was fortunate to be invited to contribute to the Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography by the editor, Aviezer Tucker, which is being launched in Prague next week. Unfortunately I can't attend...
But I did get to write about Darwin as a contributor to historiography, albeit one who was inadvertently causing a revolution in the way we saw the past rather than a deliberate iconoclast. It looks like a fascinating book and I can't wait to get my…
clock | October 22, 2008How many moles of Guacamole did Bishop Ussher consume on this day? How about Samuel S. Snow on the same day some years later? Not that this Epic FAIL is going to deter the True Believers - dealing with them is a "a repetitious and futile task" and they'll keep coming up with fresh dates. I bet many expect this November 4th to be one of those dates....
evolvingthoughts | 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 Cambridge University, Andrew Mendelsohn, Senior Lecturer in the History of Science and Medicine at Imperial College, University of London, and Pietro Corsi, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oxford.
It's an excellent introduction to both the myths and facts about how modern…
evolvingthoughts | 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 links to also notes that it was an Australian, no even a Victorian (my home state's) innovation to have the state produce the electoral ballots. Yay us!
Siris also notes what I should have realised: that before Descartes, philosophers thought animals had the rudiments of cognition. Given the Great…
aardvarchaeology | October 13, 2008
Here's some Bedouin furniture and family history for y'all.
To the left, a folding brass smoking table bought by my granddad Ingemar in Punjab, India, shortly before the Great Depression. Ingemar worked as a safety match salesman for Swedish industrialist Ivar Krüger, whom the Depression would make very depressed indeed. My granddad told lots of stories of his years in India, the greatest adventure of his life. Returning to Sweden, he had wanted to become a philologist, but, lacking money, he instead went to work in his brother's accountancy firm. The coolest thing about his career was being…
evolvingthoughts | 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 with much larger colonial and imperial matters.
But nascent cultures and countries have to establish themselves, and the prevailing nationalisms of the past 50 years in Australia have meant that school students were force fed this material over and over. I always wanted to know about Europe and…
grrlscientist | October 4, 2008tags: John Scopes, Scopes Monkey Trial, Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial, evolution, creationism, religious fundamentalism, education
Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial: John Thomas Scopes.
Image: Watson Davis (1896-1967), courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution (copyright free). [larger view].
Description: Taken the month before the Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial. June 1925
Creator/Photographer: Watson Davis
Medium: Black and white photographic print
Dimensions: 4.25 in x 3 in
Culture: American
Geography: USA
Date: 1925
Persistent URL
Repository: Smithsonian Institution Archives…
grrlscientist | October 4, 2008tags: John Scopes, Scopes Monkey Trial, Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial, evolution, creationism, religious fundamentalism, education
Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial: Privies outside the Rhea County (Tennessee) courthouse with "Read Your Bible" sign.
Image: Watson Davis (1896-1967), courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution (copyright free). [larger view].
For the first time ever, a series of 39 original photographs from the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial are now available for your viewing pleasure.
Description: Taken during the Tennessee v. John T. Scopes Trial. July 1925
Creator/…
pharyngula | October 4, 2008Looking for some images from a classic trial? The Smithsonian has recently put a set of photos from the 1925 Scopes trial on Flickr.
razib | October 1, 2008PLoS One has an interesting new paper on the intersection of archeology, history and genetics, Mitochondrial DNA Evidence for a Diversified Origin of Workers Building Mausoleum for First Emperor of China:
In conclusion, we showed that MBWs was an admixture and bore genetic continuity with contemporary Chinese populations. Its origin was much diversified, which seems to be compatible with historical accounts that the sources of slaved workers at Qin. Dynasty tend to be extremely diverse. Furthermore, we showed that a strong presence of the workers of southern origins although the results of…
aardvarchaeology | September 22, 2008Early experiments with tinned food led to a number of lead-poisoning cases, particularly among people who had nothing but tins to eat. Recent work by Norwegian researchers Ulf Aasebø and Kjell Kjær has documented yet another case, the hitherto mysterious deaths of seventeen seal hunters on Svalbard in 1872. Says Kjær, "Inside the tinned food we found so much lead, that it hung like icicles inside the cans". This prompts me to re-run a blog entry from March 2006.
The hatter in Alice in Wonderland was mad as a March hare. Hares go nuts in the spring simply out of randiness. But hatters went…
evolvingthoughts | 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 about what a fallacy actually is might be to the point.
According to Archbishop Richard Whately, whose book The Elements of Logic, first published in 1828 from an encyclopedia article revitalised the modern study of logic in the English tradition,
By a Fallacy is commonly understood, "any…
terrasig | September 20, 2008Dr Ernest Eliel, a past-president of the American Chemical Society, passed away in Chapel Hill, NC, on Thursday evening. Dr Eliel was 86.
His obituary notes:
Born December 28, 1921, in Cologne, Germany, Dr. Eliel was the son of the late Oskar and Luise Tietz Eliel. He moved to the United States in 1946, and received a Ph.D degree from the University of IL at Urbana-Champaign in 1948. Dr. Eliel lived in South Bend, IN, where he taught at the University of Notre Dame from 1948 until 1972, at which time he moved to Chapel Hill, where he was the W.R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Chemistry at the…
evolvingthoughts | September 16, 2008
A paper I recently saw in EMBO Reports made the following assertion:
Ancient Greek philosophers laid the groundwork for the scientific tradition of critical inquiry, but they nevertheless missed out on one aspect important to modern science. Many philosophers obtained their results through a tradition of contemplation and thought rather than experimental procedure, which, not surprisingly, led to errors. Aristotle’s belief that the brain is a cooling organ for the blood was definitely not based on anything that scientists today would consider scientific evidence. He also thought that in…
terrasig | September 15, 2008I'll be a little light on blogging this week so I'll mostly be sharing a couple of quick reads I've stumbled upon recently.
This one is presented in light of my post last week on National HBCU Week and the accompanying post from my colleague, DrugMonkey (whose referral generated even more discussion).
This tidbit is from the journalism and news production students of James Logan High School in Union City, CA:
"I always, always, always like mathematics." Marjorie Lee Browne.
Marjorie Lee Browne (9 Sept 1914-19 Oct 1979) was a notable mathematics educator, the second African-American woman to…
oracknows | September 14, 2008...sometimes the good guys win.
Congratulations to Ben Goldacre for taking on the supplement quack Matthias Rath and prevailing. That he did it even in the notoriously plaintiff-friendly U.K. court system is even better. Indeed, The Guardian also deserves kudos for supporting Ben in this.
This case could be as momentous in terms of its implications for going after health fraud in the U.K. as the David Irving case was in terms of Holocaust denial. No, I am not calling Rath a neo-Nazi or Holocaust denier. There is no evidence, at least as far as I'm aware, that he subscribes to such vile views…
evolvingthoughts | September 14, 2008
The hyperborean John Pieret, notes that my love for the "social glue" theory of religion (I henceforth steal that name, John; sue me. Oh, wait, you're a lawyer aren't you? Never mind) has been backed up by two ASU anthropologists in a new book. I'd feel a lot happier if my views weren't being supported by Craig T. Palmer, who previously coauthored a book on rape in the natural world with Randy Thornhill. However, I'll take whatever support I can get.
Meanwhile the Church of England is apologising for getting stuck into Charles Darwin for the theory of evolution. In my mind the Thomists and…
clock | September 13, 2008
This was first posted on http://www.jregrassroots.org/ forums on July 10, 2004, then republished on Science And Politics on August 18, 2004. That was to be just the first, and most raw, post on this topic on my blog. It was followed by about a 100 more posts building on this idea, modifying it, and changing my mind in the process. You can see some of the better follow-ups here. Also, I have since then read Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz, which is a much better and more scholarly work than E.J.Graff's book. Below the…