Next week I’ll be presenting at the annual ACKMIDS conference here in Melbourne. I’ve put up a draft copy of our paper for reading and comment on my Papers and Publications page. Just in case you are interested … ?

Its my blog and I’ll gloat if I want to …
Today I was presented with the Bostik Australian Ecosystem Management Award for my excellent work in Restoration Ecology in 2003. I thought the prize would be a life time supply of Blu-Tack, but no luck there. Still, the $800 will go a long way to […]

A cool new research tool (and a HUGE distraction): Google Scholar. You enter an author, and it returns a list of published articles, with citation rankings and cross references.

[Acknowledgements: Kai von Fintel via TAR]

This really couldn’t pass me by. Today’s Age reports:
Schools should teach the biblical creation story alongside
evolutionary theory, Family First chairman Peter Harris said
yesterday.  [continued…]

As well as being yet another example of the scary power of the American influenced religious right in Australia, this reveals just how significant Family First could be as a political voice. […]

Some great news come through yesterday. The FIT Small Grant I helped write was successful. Not only does this ensure that there will be some money to help continue my research position, it may allow a way of overcoming the paradox of grant writing.
Knowledge Organization for Managing Risk in Food
Safety
CI - Dr H. Linger

Mentor** - […]

I’m certainly a fan of adventure activities, and have done a bit of hiking, climbing, skiing, paragliding etc in my time. But I doubt I’ll ever go this far. If you are extremely keen , then take a look here.
 

Expanding on the previous post:
Think about the example of the explanation for WWI.
The Comparative explanation looks at what is common to all the possible worlds in which WWI occurred – this explanation will appeal to ‘broad’ facts about the socio-economic political climate in Europe in the early 20th century.
The Contrastive explanation looks for what is […]

Looking at the poll watcher on myDD it struck me how obvious the divide is in the US. It also struck me that the blue (DEM) states tended to be those (i) that I know the most about; (ii) I have friends living in; (iii) have most of the best universities; (iv) have most of […]

I have to admit I’ve been a bit distracted today, following the US election results on the BBC flash animation, on C-SPAN , and here. I’m also obsessively following the blog discussions at Crooked Timber and John Quiggan. Sadly, it is looking like Bush will win Ohio and Florida, and thus win the election.
One […]

Following up my last post, this will be a bit of a brain dump, so it may be a bit rough, and it may give away some of my trade secrets …
I introduced the idea of explanatory pluralism in ‘Willie Sutton and defining the task’: this is the idea that there may be more than […]