Essay Review: The Laws of BeliefWolfgang Spohn, The Laws of Belief: Ranking Theory and Its Philosophical Applications. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2012), 625 pp., £75.00 (cloth).

2012 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 584-588
Author(s):  
Franz Huber
Keyword(s):  
Essay Review ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Ranking Theory ◽  
Oxford University Press

Essay review: Broad-minded biologist

1993 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-310
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Essay Review ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Mentally Retarded ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Oxford University Press

Christopher Sexton, The Seeds of Time: the Life of Sir Macfarlane Burnet . Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. 301, £19.95. ISBN 019 5532740 Those who knew Burnet only after he had become a successful and widely respected scientist will be surprised to learn from this biography that, when younger, he had been shy and diffident. There is, however, no room for doubt about this. Sexton quotes illustrative comments by others, passages from diaries, and the autobiography published in 1968. Shyness and diffidence were not familial traits: there are 15 Bumet(t)s in the DNB , and F.M. Burnet claims five Fellows of the Royal Society as collaterals. The shyness may have arisen from his mother’s preoccupation with the care of his mentally-retarded elder sister and the failure to make close contact with his father, a banker who had emigrated from Scotland to Australia in 1880. The young Burnet became an assiduous reader, with a keen interest in natural history and a special interest in beetles.

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