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
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)
I also also have a standalone article, here: https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932718300528
Full disclosure: analysis to a certain extent changed by the time of the dissertation.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
Full disclosure: analysis to a certain extent changed by the time of the dissertation.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
November 24, 2025 at 4:58 PM
I also also have a standalone article, here: https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932718300528
Full disclosure: analysis to a certain extent changed by the time of the dissertation.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
Full disclosure: analysis to a certain extent changed by the time of the dissertation.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
The diagram was more than a picture. He referred to it frequently in the text, clearly believing that the diagrammatic form rendered some aspects of evolutionary dynamics more clearly than text could. I’ve written about this in my dissertation, available on request.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
November 24, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Darwin’s publisher, John Murray, was usually quite generous about paying for maps, plates, and in-text images for D’s books, and D attended closely to his illustrations, so it’s surprising that the Origin featured only 1, a diagrammatic model of change through time.
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
🌱🐋🧪 #histSTM #evobio 🐡
November 24, 2025 at 4:53 PM
Asa Gray was born OTD in 1810. A devout believer in a personal God, G was also one of Darwin’s greatest champions.
In a correspondence spanning 12 years, G and D minutely explored what evolution says about God and free will. D could not accept G’s God, but was deeply torn.
🌱🐋 #HistSTM #philsci 🧪
In a correspondence spanning 12 years, G and D minutely explored what evolution says about God and free will. D could not accept G’s God, but was deeply torn.
🌱🐋 #HistSTM #philsci 🧪
| Darwin Correspondence Project
www.darwinproject.ac.uk
November 18, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Arthur Miller was born OTD in 1915.
He had a complicated relationship with The Crucible, never settling even on who was the central villain. But late in life, he offered this:
“I’m not really a moralist. I just make the assumption that certain things we do lead to catastrophe.”
#philsky #booksky
He had a complicated relationship with The Crucible, never settling even on who was the central villain. But late in life, he offered this:
“I’m not really a moralist. I just make the assumption that certain things we do lead to catastrophe.”
#philsky #booksky
November 17, 2025 at 4:09 PM
“To make a life of order out of the buzzing confusion in a wondrous but difficult world demands our best efforts.… Negotiating the physical world into a conceptual entity of some interest and dimension is a challenge of the championship level.”
November 15, 2025 at 4:13 PM
“To make a life of order out of the buzzing confusion in a wondrous but difficult world demands our best efforts.… Negotiating the physical world into a conceptual entity of some interest and dimension is a challenge of the championship level.”
Wayne Thiebaud was born OTD in 1920.
“You can do art history backwards or forwards; you can take your choice. Progress is not part of it. Variation, yes, and extension and all that, but progress? Phew. I don’t know how you’d beat any of that stuff, even from the cave period.”
“You can do art history backwards or forwards; you can take your choice. Progress is not part of it. Variation, yes, and extension and all that, but progress? Phew. I don’t know how you’d beat any of that stuff, even from the cave period.”
November 15, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Wayne Thiebaud was born OTD in 1920.
“You can do art history backwards or forwards; you can take your choice. Progress is not part of it. Variation, yes, and extension and all that, but progress? Phew. I don’t know how you’d beat any of that stuff, even from the cave period.”
“You can do art history backwards or forwards; you can take your choice. Progress is not part of it. Variation, yes, and extension and all that, but progress? Phew. I don’t know how you’d beat any of that stuff, even from the cave period.”
As a consequence L believed that, like classical physics, geological dynamics are ergodic. In exploring a Newtonian state space, the earth system will return to a state in which iguanadons, ichthyosaurs, and pterodactyls roam the earth
Henry De la Beche mocked him here
🗃️🧠🧪 ⚒️ 🦋🦫 #histSTM #philsci 🐡
Henry De la Beche mocked him here
🗃️🧠🧪 ⚒️ 🦋🦫 #histSTM #philsci 🐡
November 15, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Charles Lyell was born OTD in 1797. L believed that geology could and should be made a Newtonian science: Just as “the fall of an apple ... assist[s] in explaining the motions of the moon,” so too “the laws of earthquakes ... throw light on the origin of mountains....”
🗃️🧠🧪 ⚒️ 🦋🦫 #histSTM #philsci 🐡
🗃️🧠🧪 ⚒️ 🦋🦫 #histSTM #philsci 🐡
November 15, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Reposted by Greg Priest
See the chords connecting with the genes to each other and to the phenotype in the righthand image? This is an early depiction of gene regulatory networks. More on this here. academic.oup.com/ije/article-...
Commentary: The epigenotype—a dynamic network view of development
academic.oup.com
November 8, 2025 at 4:36 PM
See the chords connecting with the genes to each other and to the phenotype in the righthand image? This is an early depiction of gene regulatory networks. More on this here. academic.oup.com/ije/article-...
Reposted by Greg Priest
I wanna invite Pope Leo to my Intro to Science and Technology Studies class
November 7, 2025 at 6:04 PM
I wanna invite Pope Leo to my Intro to Science and Technology Studies class
Reposted by Greg Priest
Pinball model of development and reprogramming. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
November 8, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Pinball model of development and reprogramming. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Reposted by Greg Priest
I loved reading Waddington's essays. I think he presented such a nuanced and easy to understand metaphor for gene regulation.
I made a model of his landscape to demonstrate how it could be used in an education setting. It doubles as a marble toy for my daughter.
www.printables.com/model/671135...
I made a model of his landscape to demonstrate how it could be used in an education setting. It doubles as a marble toy for my daughter.
www.printables.com/model/671135...
Marble Tile Game by zeal | Download free STL model | Printables.com
www.printables.com
November 8, 2025 at 9:12 PM
I loved reading Waddington's essays. I think he presented such a nuanced and easy to understand metaphor for gene regulation.
I made a model of his landscape to demonstrate how it could be used in an education setting. It doubles as a marble toy for my daughter.
www.printables.com/model/671135...
I made a model of his landscape to demonstrate how it could be used in an education setting. It doubles as a marble toy for my daughter.
www.printables.com/model/671135...
Conrad Hal Waddington was born OTD in 1905.
His “epigenetic landscape” is a diagrammatic representation of the constraints influencing embryonic development.
On his 50th birthday, his colleagues gave him a pinball machine on the model of the epigenetic landscape.
🧪 🦫🦋 🌱🐋 #HistSTM #philsci #evobio
His “epigenetic landscape” is a diagrammatic representation of the constraints influencing embryonic development.
On his 50th birthday, his colleagues gave him a pinball machine on the model of the epigenetic landscape.
🧪 🦫🦋 🌱🐋 #HistSTM #philsci #evobio
November 8, 2025 at 4:03 PM
It was no “mere” metaphor: “plants do not … possess nerves or a central nervous system; and we may infer that with animals such structures serve only for the more perfect transmission of impressions, and for the more complete intercommunication of the several parts."
🧪🌱🐋 #philsci #HistSTM 🦋🦫
🧪🌱🐋 #philsci #HistSTM 🦋🦫
November 6, 2025 at 4:28 PM