Ruse on the left, Charlesworth on the right. |
On the train from Tübingen to Stuttgart I sat next to Brian Charlesworth. We spoke about research and the conference, and also about Ruse's talk. I commented how amusing I found the above exchange, and Brian joyfully let on that it was he who had voiced his disagreement. Brian gave the final plenary talk at the conference, and with a smile on his face, he recalled how he in his talk had mentioned that Haldane has written so lucidly about evolution, and that perhaps that was why certain philosophers had trouble appreciating him, since lucidity is not the strength of philosophers in general. Har! Hear hear. Rumor has it that Ruse didn't find that comment all that amusing, but I'm not so sure.
That's wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to comment on your earlier post, but wasn't sure I could well formulate why I regard Haldane as the greatest of the three. Even confining attention to genetics, statistics and evolution (just a small part of what Haldane did) he was at least the equal of Wright and Fisher.