Top all-time · #13095
John S. Wilkins
Personal blog · evolvingthoughts.netphilosophyscience
John S. Wilkins writes Evolving Thoughts, a personal blog at evolvingthoughts.net about philosophy and science. Since 2011, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 6 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-12, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link John S. Wilkins's blog for posts on evolution, teleology and human behaviour, including a note on a misattributed Haldane quotation. The comments cite the posts as support and do not judge the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
In the head of John S. Wilkins
What Hacker News says?
That was more figurative, and perhaps too much of a literary flourish. My point is that this behavior is endemic to our species, and not unlike that observed among chimps or other members of Hominoidea, as detailed in: http://evolvingthoughts.net/2012/03/are-humans-apes-monkeys-... That is to say, the rich in all societies take and do what they like, modulated either by internal moral codes or external legal enforce…
Comment linking /2012/03/are-humans-apes-monkeys-primates-or-hominims/
on “India’s elites have a ferocious sense of entitlement”Submitted A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAs Haldane said This is a very likely a misattributed quotation. http://evolvingthoughts.net/2009/09/teleology-as-a-mistress/ Ernst Mayr's discussion in his essay "Teleological and Teleonomic: A New Analysis," http://books.google.com/books?id=uJS79Za7WZ0C&pg=PA392&#... while attributing the saying (without citation of a source) to Haldane, gets to the issue I was getting at in my top-level comment. Evolution happens…
Comment linking /2009/09/teleology-as-a-mistress/
on “Algernon's Law”Submitted The problem with logic as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Begging questions about philosophy, science and everything else as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Happy Newtonmas as a story · 2 points
HN discussion