In praise of an unkempt garden

There are plenty of houses, in the transitional area of Oxford where I live, whose gardens are what some would call anti-social. Lawns uncut all year, rubble piled up, weeds taking over and generally making the property appear vacant, unloved and unfriendly. At least, this is the typical societal attitude towards such gardens, I think. More careful, considerate homeowners keep everything neat and tidy, which makes the whole street feel safer, keeps house prices higher and generally pleases those inclined towards neighbourhood-watch stickers in their windows. Unkempt houses make a house look empty, which implies no one wants to buy it, which will depress all the prices. Or like it might be occupied by squatters, who are terribly dangerous. Or, worst of all, like students live there.

Is it conference season already?

I'm looking forward to three in particular....

Metaphors and Analogies in Evolutionary Biology in Bristol promises to be a good un, 17-18 June.

Good Done Right here at my gaff is all about effective altruism, using insights from ethical theory, economics, and related disciplines to get people to just be a bit goddammed nicer. 7-9 July.


Finally the BSPS(British Society for the Philosophy of Science)'s annual conference will doubtless be its usual boozy brilliant gathering of the sparkliest thinkers around. This year its in Cambridge, 10-11 July.

Looks like I need to arrange some extra childcare.......

Is breastfeeding altruistic?

A skua steals milk from an elephant seal's teat

It certainly feels like it, at times. Like at 4am when papa is snoring and you’ve got a biro wedged under each eye lid, willing baby darling to suck its last so you can sink back into oblivion. Or, several months down the line, when the little monkey gets a mischievous glint in his eye and goes in for an experimental chew. But we must distinguish psychological from biological altruism here.

Philosophy of science for scientists, and science for philosophers of science!

See my post over at Auxiliary Hypotheses.

Letter to my grown up son

Dear Orso,
I expect that, like all humans, you will think there were some things your parents could have done better in their task of raising you. I expect that you will take me for granted, and overlook my needs when they come after your own. But whatever faults you identify in me, whatever inadequacies I have, I hope that you can understand I really tried to do my best.

Analogies, evolutionary forces, and a shiny new journal

Analogies are all the rage in Philosophy of Science of late, doncha know. Griffiths and Stotz talk about them, Dennett talks about them (I love that Amazon has his new book filed as 'self-help' btw), and now Bristol are going to be talking about them for two days straight.

This week we can all enjoy the hotly anticipated  debut of one of Philosophy's first open-access general journal Ergo, for which we have the fantastic Franz Huber and Jonathan Weisberg of Toronto to heartily thank.

Snail sexy time

Just caught these lot at it on my front wall. The scoundrels!

Horsetail invasion

My garden is being taken over by these badboys, Equisetum arvense. Known popularly as horsetails, or snake grass, they are notorious invasive weeds that are difficult to eliminate. If you google it, you'll mostly find advice on how to get rid of it - easier said than done. The thing is, I can't help but like them!

They are living fossils,

One

Or 21 months if we count his time on the inside.

I wish, I wish.....I wish I had a proper cake and not just a candle stuck in a grape!

My baby isn't a baby anymore : (
He's a giggling, pointing, stair-climbing, truck-pushing, wire-chewing, lion-roaring, general-mischief-making toddler. Who doesn't quite toddle yet.

The ethics of having (more) children

Laurie Paul wrote an excellent paper, a few months back, addressing the epistemology of choosing to become a parent. The ethical question, of whether or not to choose to burden the planet with one's progeny, is one that has received plenty of attention since contraception became widely available in some countries in the 1960s. But a related topic, or perhaps sub-topic, that I don't believed has been addressed in an academic setting, is the ethics of choosing to get pregnant when one already has one or more children. In particular, I'm wondering about the moral issues connected with subjecting one's child to siblings.