Greg Priest
@gregpriest.bsky.social
PhD in history and philosophy of science (also JD and MLA), Stanford.
Biology, complexity, diagramming. Philosophy of history.
Curates these BlueSky feeds:
History and Philosophy of Biology
Complexity Science
Philosophy of History and Historiography
Biology, complexity, diagramming. Philosophy of history.
Curates these BlueSky feeds:
History and Philosophy of Biology
Complexity Science
Philosophy of History and Historiography
OTD 1908 Willhelm Weinberg gave a talk to the Society for the Natural History of the Fatherland in Württemberg giving the population genetics equations GH Hardy would independently publish 5 months later. It was 35 years before his work was recognized in the Anglophone world.
🐋🌱🥢🧪 #EvoBio #HistSTM
🐋🌱🥢🧪 #EvoBio #HistSTM
January 13, 2026 at 5:27 PM
Paul Feyerabend was born OTD in 1924.
Knowledge is not a body of consistent theories converging on truth. It is “an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible … alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth … forcing the others into greater articulation.”
🧪🦋🦫 #PhilSci #STS
Knowledge is not a body of consistent theories converging on truth. It is “an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible … alternatives, each single theory, each fairy tale, each myth … forcing the others into greater articulation.”
🧪🦋🦫 #PhilSci #STS
January 13, 2026 at 5:25 PM
William James was born OTD in 1842.
As important as “pragmatism” to understanding James is “meliorism,” the idea that improving the world is possible, but not assured. We have to fight for it.
“We receive in short the block of marble, but we carve the statue ourselves.”
#philsky
As important as “pragmatism” to understanding James is “meliorism,” the idea that improving the world is possible, but not assured. We have to fight for it.
“We receive in short the block of marble, but we carve the statue ourselves.”
#philsky
January 11, 2026 at 4:28 PM
William James was born OTD in 1842.
As important as “pragmatism” to understanding James is “meliorism,” the idea that improving the world is possible, but not assured. We have to fight for it.
“We receive in short the block of marble, but we carve the statue ourselves.”
#philsky
As important as “pragmatism” to understanding James is “meliorism,” the idea that improving the world is possible, but not assured. We have to fight for it.
“We receive in short the block of marble, but we carve the statue ourselves.”
#philsky
An ecologist “lives alone in a world of wounds…. [He] must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”
🌱🐋🌎🧪
🌱🐋🌎🧪
January 11, 2026 at 4:06 PM
An ecologist “lives alone in a world of wounds…. [He] must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”
🌱🐋🌎🧪
🌱🐋🌎🧪
Alfred Russel Wallace born OTD in 1823.
He said he shared with Darwin “an intense interest in … the variety [of living things] that catches the eye of the observer even among those which are very much alike, but which are soon found to differ in several distinct characters.”
🌱🐋🧪 #HistSTM #EvoBio
He said he shared with Darwin “an intense interest in … the variety [of living things] that catches the eye of the observer even among those which are very much alike, but which are soon found to differ in several distinct characters.”
🌱🐋🧪 #HistSTM #EvoBio
January 8, 2026 at 4:03 PM
OTD in 1912, Alfred Wegener delivered a lecture propounding the theory that our modern continents were formed by the splitting and drifting apart of an ancient supercontinent, which he named Pangea.
Due to his failure to offer a plausible mechanism, he was widely ridiculed.
🧠🗃️⚒️ 🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci
Due to his failure to offer a plausible mechanism, he was widely ridiculed.
🧠🗃️⚒️ 🧪 #HistSTM #PhilSci
January 6, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Arthur Danto was born Jan 2, 1924
To call a car “dented” is to implicitly refer to an earlier undented state.
Stories “have a beginning, a middle, and an end. An [historical] explanation then consists in filling in the middle between the temporal end-points of a change.”
🧠🗃️ 🦋🦫 #PhilSsci #PhilSky
To call a car “dented” is to implicitly refer to an earlier undented state.
Stories “have a beginning, a middle, and an end. An [historical] explanation then consists in filling in the middle between the temporal end-points of a change.”
🧠🗃️ 🦋🦫 #PhilSsci #PhilSky
January 4, 2026 at 12:15 AM
OTD in 1944, in Korematsu v. US, SCOTUS upheld the constitutionality of FDR’s order that US citizens of Japanese descent be involuntarily interned.
The decision has come to be seen as one of the lowest moments in the Supreme Court’s history.
The decision has come to be seen as one of the lowest moments in the Supreme Court’s history.
December 18, 2025 at 6:36 PM
OTD in 1944, in Korematsu v. US, SCOTUS upheld the constitutionality of FDR’s order that US citizens of Japanese descent be involuntarily interned.
The decision has come to be seen as one of the lowest moments in the Supreme Court’s history.
The decision has come to be seen as one of the lowest moments in the Supreme Court’s history.
Maurice Wilkins was born OTD in 1916. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the structure of DNA using X-ray crystallography.
He did not start out in biochemistry. He changed fields after being disillusioned by his work on the Manhattan Project.
🐋🌱 #HistSTM #STS 🧪 🐡
He did not start out in biochemistry. He changed fields after being disillusioned by his work on the Manhattan Project.
🐋🌱 #HistSTM #STS 🧪 🐡
December 15, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Maxwell's Demon was born OTD in 1867 in a letter to Peter Guthrie Tait. M called it only a “finite being.”
Lord Kelvin named it a “demon,” presumably referring to its apparent unearthly power to (locally and temporarily) violate the second law of thermodynamics.
🦫🦋 #HistSTM #philsci 🧪
Lord Kelvin named it a “demon,” presumably referring to its apparent unearthly power to (locally and temporarily) violate the second law of thermodynamics.
🦫🦋 #HistSTM #philsci 🧪
December 12, 2025 at 1:17 AM
An article I saw today details a debate (in Heisenberg’s old stomping grounds of Helogland) in which Carlo Rovelli and Chris Fuchs argue about how best to interpret Heisenberg’s intuition.
🦫🦋🧪 #philsci
https://www.science.org/content/article/100-years-quantum-mechanics-redefining-reality-us-center
🦫🦋🧪 #philsci
https://www.science.org/content/article/100-years-quantum-mechanics-redefining-reality-us-center
December 5, 2025 at 6:26 PM
An article I saw today details a debate (in Heisenberg’s old stomping grounds of Helogland) in which Carlo Rovelli and Chris Fuchs argue about how best to interpret Heisenberg’s intuition.
🦫🦋🧪 #philsci
https://www.science.org/content/article/100-years-quantum-mechanics-redefining-reality-us-center
🦫🦋🧪 #philsci
https://www.science.org/content/article/100-years-quantum-mechanics-redefining-reality-us-center
Joan Didion was born OTD in 1934.
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live.... We live entirely … by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
#BookSky #Lit 🦋🦫 🗃️🧠
"We tell ourselves stories in order to live.... We live entirely … by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”
#BookSky #Lit 🦋🦫 🗃️🧠
December 5, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Werner Heisenberg was born OTD in 1901.
“What we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” We are “asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer … by the means that are at our disposal.”
🦋🦫🧪 #PhilSci #HistSTM
“What we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” We are “asking questions about nature in the language that we possess and trying to get an answer … by the means that are at our disposal.”
🦋🦫🧪 #PhilSci #HistSTM
December 5, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Claude the albino alligator, the unofficial but very real mascot of the California Academy of Sciences, has died at 30, apparently of liver cancer. I’m kind of broken up about it.
In all seriousness, may his memory be a blessing.
🧪🐋🌱
In all seriousness, may his memory be a blessing.
🧪🐋🌱
Claude the alligator’s cause of death revealed: ‘There was nothing we could have done’
As Bay Area residents mourned the death of Claude the albino alligator this week, the California Academy of Sciences received the results of a necropsy.
www.sfchronicle.com
December 4, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Claude the albino alligator, the unofficial but very real mascot of the California Academy of Sciences, has died at 30, apparently of liver cancer. I’m kind of broken up about it.
In all seriousness, may his memory be a blessing.
🧪🐋🌱
In all seriousness, may his memory be a blessing.
🧪🐋🌱
St. George Jackson Mivart, one of Darwin’s fiercest critics, was born OTD in 1827.
If long necks favor giraffes on the African savannah, M asked, where are the *other* long-necked ungulates? Why are there not vast herds of giraffopottamuses sweeping across the veldt?
#QED
🧪 🌱🐋 #HistSTM #EvoBio
If long necks favor giraffes on the African savannah, M asked, where are the *other* long-necked ungulates? Why are there not vast herds of giraffopottamuses sweeping across the veldt?
#QED
🧪 🌱🐋 #HistSTM #EvoBio
November 30, 2025 at 4:09 PM
The surprising crab-trap–pulling behavior is described in this article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
We recently published a paper on how animal tool use is conceptualized, offering a framework to make sense of its different forms 👇📃 www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #evosky #philsci
We recently published a paper on how animal tool use is conceptualized, offering a framework to make sense of its different forms 👇📃 www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #evosky #philsci
November 27, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Darwin was a pioneer in experimental psychology, showing photos of human faces that had been galvanically stimulated to represent different emotions to visitors to Down House in an effort to determine which emotions could be reliably identified. 3/4
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
November 26, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Darwin had earlier made detailed observations of the emotional displays of his “little animalcule of a son,” William Erasmus, which he used in Expression.
D’s wife Emma worried that if she were “out of temper,” he would just be “forming theories about me.”
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
D’s wife Emma worried that if she were “out of temper,” he would just be “forming theories about me.”
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
November 26, 2025 at 4:54 PM
Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions launched OTD in 1872.
Just as our bodily form has evolved from our animal ancestors, so too have our minds, including "the habit of expressing our feelings [or, in his title, "emotions"] by certain movements." 1/4
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
Just as our bodily form has evolved from our animal ancestors, so too have our minds, including "the habit of expressing our feelings [or, in his title, "emotions"] by certain movements." 1/4
🧪🌱🐋 #HistSTM #Evobio #Psychsky
November 26, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Apparent case of learned tool use by wolves.
https://youtu.be/SiuQF68tdWI?si=k7DWNrI0y5jASt-o
#EvoBio #HPBio
https://youtu.be/SiuQF68tdWI?si=k7DWNrI0y5jASt-o
#EvoBio #HPBio
Cameras capture BC sea wolf raiding crab traps in first possible ‘tool use’
YouTube video by Global News
youtu.be
November 25, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Apparent case of learned tool use by wolves.
https://youtu.be/SiuQF68tdWI?si=k7DWNrI0y5jASt-o
#EvoBio #HPBio
https://youtu.be/SiuQF68tdWI?si=k7DWNrI0y5jASt-o
#EvoBio #HPBio
John Beatty has a lovely chapter analyzing this topic in Kohn’s classic volume The Darwinian Heritage: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400854714.265/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOooCnjMcj4ghbwulYQebLeOoMOV168osG2dP9u5WXMt6pKE2LS0F
One of the great things about this work is the way Darwin performs a discourse analysis of the word "species" as it is used in the sciences. To me, it reads closer to Derrida than standard biological writing.
November 24, 2025 at 5:02 PM
John Beatty has a lovely chapter analyzing this topic in Kohn’s classic volume The Darwinian Heritage: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400854714.265/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOooCnjMcj4ghbwulYQebLeOoMOV168osG2dP9u5WXMt6pKE2LS0F
![Handwritteen note with a tree diagram inscribed in concentric circles representing geological time. Center is labled "Paleoz[oic]." First sphere is labled "Second[ary]." Next sphere is labled "Tertiary." At the top of the page is the following text: "Dot means new form--[illeg.]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6eqjufcnopmdmucccde5aeob/bafkreid5gprtscooczxuoxg4qy7agigiqaqyh4u6qnjc56uwt6ayrs33oa@jpeg)