swoodill

The Idea of Evolution

The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote

Ivan E. Coyote is a transgendered writer/storyteller who grew up in the Yukon and now lives in Vancouver. This book is his latest and it is a compilation of short stories. The stories are not really fiction; they are based on real life experience, though I doubt that they would fit neatly into any oneContinue reading “The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote”

Marriage and Morals–Bertrand Russell

Well, I have not too much to say about this yet. I am interested in the particular alignment between the wife and the prostitute. Not that this idea is new to me, it’s just that this work seems to be particularly foundational. As one goes through this blog there appears to be a divergent setContinue reading “Marriage and Morals–Bertrand Russell”

Natural Kinds Pt 2

Natural Kinds: Rosy Dawn, Scholastic Twilight by Ian Hacking. Basically and simply: there are no such things as “natural kinds.” Despite the fact that the concept has an endowed history and has functioned well for certain conceptual purposes (eg. as a mode of clear-cut classifying such as is required by the scholastic tradition), the conceptContinue reading “Natural Kinds Pt 2”

Natural Kinds

The Origins of ‘Natural Kinds’: Keeping ‘Essentialism” at Bay in the Age of Reform Gordon McOuat Intellectual History Review 19(2) 2009: 211-230 Essentialism-here refers to the idea that for any specific thing there is some absolutely necessary element(s) present thus allowing for a percise definition. Natural Kinds-groups of entities that share a set of necessaryContinue reading “Natural Kinds”

Sexual Fluidity

This book has two basic points: 1. Women’s sexuality is markedly different from male sexuality 2. Women’s sexuality, although likely grounded in an actual biological orientation, is highly susceptible to context and culture and is not fixed but fluid This books traverses a wide terrain of sexuality studies in a thorough and critical manner. AlthoughContinue reading “Sexual Fluidity”

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism, primatomorphism, mammalomorphism: understanding cross-species comparisons BRIAN L. KEELEY Biology and Philosophy 19: 521–540, 2004. In this article, the author argues that the “sin” of anthropomorphism is rooted in an outdated theological tradition that equated describing God in terms of human qualities to a blasphemous act that reduced God to mere mortal and elided hisContinue reading “Anthropomorphism”

Universal Darwinism

Dawkins, Richard. “Universal Darwinism.” Philosophy of Biology eds. Hull & Ruse, London: Oxford, 1998 Basic point of this paper is to argue that darwinism is approximately a universal maxim. In other words, it will work well anywhere. Dawkins reviews seven different evolution theories, points out their strengths and weaknesses in order to show that indeedContinue reading “Universal Darwinism”

Intelligent Design

Johnson, Phillip “Evolution as Dogma.” Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics Ed. Robert Pennock. Boston: MIT Press, 2001. This article covers some basic tenets of the Intelligent Design perspective. Micro-evolution, or the development and modifications of species, is not denied. The objection is with macro-evolution, or the extrapolation of the micro-evolution to the broad andContinue reading “Intelligent Design”

Evolution–Levels of Selection

Sober, Elliot and David Sloan Wilson. “A Critical Review of Philosophical Work on the Units of Selection Problem.” Philosophy of Science, 62:4 (1994), p. 534-55. As the title suggests, this article reviews the debate over the level of selection in the evolutionary process. More specifically, it reviews the specific questions of evolutionary altruism—a phenomenon inContinue reading “Evolution–Levels of Selection”