A few months ago, I discovered Jerry Coyne’s blog, ‘Why Evolution is True‘ via Scott Aaronson’s Blog on quantum computing, ‘Shtetl-Optimized‘ which I’ve followed for over 10 years (full disclosure, I understand about 50% of what Scott writes). Jerry had written some criticism of a YouTube video where Scott shared some thoughts on free will, which ultimately resulted in the two of them connecting, per Scott’s post:
A few months ago, I got to know Jerry Coyne, the recently-retired biologist at the University of Chicago who writes the blog “Why Evolution Is True.” The interaction started when Jerry put up a bemused post about my thoughts on predictability and free will, and I pointed out that if he wanted to engage me on those topics, there was more to go on than an 8-minute YouTube video. I told Coyne that it would be a shame to get off on the wrong foot with him, since perusal of his blog made it obvious that whatever he and I disputed, it was dwarfed by our areas of agreement. He and I exchanged more emails and had lunch in Chicago.
This piqued my curiosity, and I started following Jerry’s blog, which turns out to be great. It’s a bit eccentric (e.g., over-indexes in cat references relative to just about everything else I read), but the depth of the content – covering everything from biology, photography, music, politics, and more – is outstanding.
One thing Jerry does is request that his readers send him wildlife photos so that he can post them to his audience. After returning from a family trip to Costa Rica this past December, I decided to send Jerry some of my photos, and I’m honored that he decided to publish them in one of his posts.
Below are a few of my favorites.
Two-toed sloth:
Brown Pelicans:
Green Iguana:
Scarlet Macaw:
Yellow Throated Toucan:
And the rest are on Jerry’s site here.