Peter Godfrey-Smith
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petergs.bsky.social
Peter Godfrey-Smith
@petergs.bsky.social
Photo from my car window on the way to record episode 1 of the podcast series I'm doing with @meehancrist.bsky.social for the @lrb.co.uk (links below).
Mill Valley, California. Highway 1 flooded (November).
The series is called "Nature in Crisis." 1/
February 10, 2026 at 6:15 AM
Thank you very much.
February 10, 2026 at 3:24 AM
A very fine octopus encountered at Fly Point (Australia) today. Like an old battleship.
February 4, 2026 at 10:26 AM
49 degrees Celsius (= 120 F) down in Victoria?
Tomorrow evening @meehancrist.bsky.social and I record episode 3 of "Nature in Crisis," a new podcast series with the @lrb.co.uk.
Episode 1 looked at Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," and is available now (link in reply).
January 27, 2026 at 8:43 AM
It's not AI or additive; just a matter telling the camera what to look for and what to dial back.
I am a 'natural light ideologue' - see this blog post.
metazoan.net/126-spun-of-...
(Below is also an image from another blog post – how an adjustment for 12 meters or so looks at the surface.)
January 24, 2026 at 5:30 AM
A passage below in a (good) book I am reading.
I recommend against make the bet - your dollar may well be lost. One can photograph reds and oranges underwater without added light; just have to tell the camera to scour its input for the tiny amounts of red coming in, and ramp them up in the mix. 1/
January 24, 2026 at 5:30 AM
But now I don't think that the shell movement was incidental. The 'pause' before the release makes it unlikely. We saw that pause often with very clear gatherings-and-throws in our later data.
Here's an excerpt of the video, just with the 'throw.' 3/
January 22, 2026 at 4:38 AM
At the time, I worried that this might have been a case where one octopus blew a water jet at another and happened to project some shells as well.
I discussed the case way back, on my blog.
metazoan.net/10-a-new-oct...
(This case is not used in our 2022 paper on the topic.) 2/
January 22, 2026 at 4:38 AM
A blog post. About cockatoos, grooming, and affection.
metazoan.net/127-affection/
January 19, 2026 at 1:05 PM
Each year round this time, Rainbow Lorikeets come in and make a huge fuss round some high tree hollows (where some Galahs raised a family in 'Living On Earth'). They make a stack of noise, rip things up, check it all out... and then leave again.
January 16, 2026 at 4:44 AM
A favorite encounter of 2025 – bobcat, Point Reyes (California).
Bobcat not lioness, but the image brings to mind the Iranian protestors right now.
January 11, 2026 at 12:44 PM
This was the Karl Popper Memorial Lecture at LSE.
I'm applying to speech a framework developed with Ben Kerr for understanding tolerance in general, especially in relation to "toleration of the intolerant."
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
Preprint: petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/u... 4/
January 5, 2026 at 3:14 AM
In the case of speech and elsewhere, we should understand tolerance using different levels: 1st-order tolerance (or intolerance) is directed at 'ordinary' behaviors; 2nd-order tolerance is tolerance of 1st-order policies, and so on. Different questions arise at each level. 3/
January 5, 2026 at 3:14 AM
Free speech thread: In the aftermath of the Bondi murders, the state govt here is moving, unfortunately, in the direction of suppressing protest and proscribing specific phrases.
I gave talks in 2025 about tolerance & free speech. Wrote up the main one:
petergodfreysmith.com/wp-content/u...
January 5, 2026 at 3:14 AM
In relation to the blog post about lights and camera gear: this is from a recent dive trip. Mine is the diminutive rig at the end (red arrow). (Blog post: Metazoan.net)
December 30, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Thank you. Glad to hear it.
December 29, 2025 at 11:27 AM
A natural light photo from the post:
December 26, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Neruda is wonderful.
Thank you for this.
December 17, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Back in the water with Phyllodesmium poindimiei.
A gastropodic marvel. (Fly Point, Australia)
December 11, 2025 at 12:26 AM
A Great Horned Owl, seen in Point Reyes during my recent California trip. Spotted (while quite a bit better hidden than he is here) by Daniel Dietrich. A young one, apparently. Flew off and then sat watching as I scrambled up the hill to get a photo.
November 27, 2025 at 3:14 AM
Driving down the east side of the Sierra Nevadas a few weeks ago. I keep coming back here.
October 19, 2025 at 11:30 AM
The title is from a William James letter - "such flexible intensity of life in a form so inaccessible to our sympathy."
Classic James. But perhaps not so inaccessible. 2/
October 17, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Australian whale populations – what a pleasure to read this.
October 11, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Weather coming in over Eagle Lake, (California, near Tahoe), last week.
October 10, 2025 at 2:41 AM
I will do a thread here soon with a few highlights, or at least ideas that stayed with me, from the Virginia conference.
Here is one passage, which contributed the title of Fesmire's talk:
September 23, 2025 at 9:40 PM