Ernst Mayr on species classification in philosophy of biology

The assumptions of population thinking are diametrically opposed to those of the typologist. The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species,–that no two individuals are alike, is equally true for all other species of animals and plants ... All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described collectively only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean and the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, only the individuals of which the populations are composed have reality. The ultimate conclusions of the population thinker and of the typologist are precisely the opposite. For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation. an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different.

--In What Evolution is, quoted from 1959.

Aloha Friday: 2013 Merrie Monarch Festival and E Pili Mai

Mili Hokoana English, of Maui, won the Merrie Monarch 50th anniversary hula dance competition yesterday in Hilo.

Merrie Monarch is a yearly hula dance festival here.

Here's a link to a Youtube recording of a different version of the song (Mili's version had two original verses) .

E Pili Mai (Come To Me) - Words by Larry Lindsey Kimura, Music by Cyril Pahinui

ʻAuhea wale ana ʻoe
Kuʻu lei o ka pō
Pō anu hoʻokahi nō au
Sweetheart mine
E pili mai

Inā ʻo ʻoe a ʻo au
ʻIke i ke ahi o Makana
He makana ia na ke aloha
No na kau a kau
ʻO ʻoe aʻo au
Sweetheart mine
E pili mai
Where are you
My sweetheart of the night
The night is cold and I am alone
Sweetheart mine
Come to me

If you and I are together
We'll know the fires of Makana
It would be a gift given of love
For all time
You and I
Sweetheart mine
Come to me

Risks for impaired post-stroke cognitive function

In a printed posted to the medRxiv preprint archive this month, I found a chart review of patients with stroke to determine factors (other t...