Pursuing praxis

March 8, 2006

Spiff-shipping

Filed under: Goals, Personal, Speculation, Pics, Evolution, Bovids

Another blazing discovery in the history of me: St. John’s College. And I’ve already mentioned The Santa Fe Institute. Great books, the history of ideas, interdisciplinary study, complexity theory, hierarchy theory, evolution, new frontiers in thought…. I wonder if it’s possible to get psychosomatic heart arrhythmia, because it’s pitter-pattering its way towards Santa Fe. *Sigh*. Combine that with a proto-dissertation (I just need to pare it down from 80 years of work into two or three, plus a year to write), the discovery that I can apply for a Fullbright and not mess things up with the NSF, in order to study my critters in situ, probably South Africa…. my mind starts exploding with possibilities, wild, far-flung dreams, a lifetime of hair-raising intellectual adventure (and maybe some of the regular kind too), and I start picturing myself the Trojan Horse of 21st century academia…..

….moving into Stephen Jay Gould’s old office, the intrepid explorer with laser gun set to "frap", ready to zap all the alien philosophies from science, secure the establishment of a hierarchical view of evolution with my work on bovids, and spread the greatness of science to the masses at large, inspiring a whole generation of scientists and the rational populace. This is Spiff-shipping.

Life time

Filed under: Rant, Pics, Evolution

After a spat among labmates regarding the worth of new paleo methods applicable "only" to vertebrates, I’ve got my head buried in deep time. We all know humans are this incredibly recent invention in the history of earth-life. Yes, but I argue (on behalf of - first, myself - but also some 6.5 billion other human vertebrates) that vertebrates and humans are an incredibly worthwhile enterprise. Applicability to humans, even to the exclusion of other taxa, is not a damnable thing, and I’ll pick a bone or two with anyone who argues otherwise. So what if you don’t study vertebrates? Don’t use the new methods. Make some of your own.

Duh.

Next on the chopping block: the arbitrariness of genera (growing out of the parallel argument about species - and hell, why stop there? Let’s cladistically demolish the individual while we’re at it).

Saving earth-life one hierarchy at a time.

Sigh.

A review of the data:






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