Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Monthly Archives: September 2015
Lying with Phony Graphs
If the anti-abortion anti-Planned Parenthood folks had a case, you’d think they wouldn’t need to lie with transparently inept graphs that misrepresent the actual data. Scroll down on this link to see an actual chart, legitimately scaled, showing the services … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Mathematics
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Lawrence M. Krauss on Ben Carson
He says it better than I can (and of course with more authority). Ben Carson’s Scientific Ignorance It is hard to find a single detailed claim in his diatribe that is physically sensible or that reflects accurate knowledge about science. … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics
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The Atlantic on trigger warnings; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the war on reason
I mentioned a while back the cover story on The Atlantic magazine’s September issue, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. (Haidt is the author of the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Morality, Provisional Conclusions, Psychology, Religion
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Politics: Religion vs. Rationality
Jeffrey Tayler’s latest weekly essay at Salon, this past Sunday, can be keyed to my earlier posts about Ben Carson. Make them shut up about God: The right-wing’s religious delusions are killing us — and them. It focuses on the … Continue reading
Posted in Religion
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Evolution and the Teenaged Brain
From The New Yorker, August 31st, a review/essay by Elizabeth Kolbert on two books about the teenaged brain, The Terrible Teens. Many interesting points. Every adult has gone through adolescence, and studies have shown that if you ask people to … Continue reading
Oliver Sacks on SF
There are many reasons why I might have mentioned Oliver Sacks here before, which somehow escaped me, but here’s one from a couple weeks ago. From The New Yorker, Sept 14th, a piece by Atul Gawande remembering the late Oliver … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction
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David Brooks: American Exceptionalism vs. Conservatism
David Brooks’ column in Friday’s (Sept. 25th) New York Times for once said something that completely resonates with me, without his usual waffling and obeisance to parochial religious sentiment: The American Idea and Today’s G.O.P.. He takes the idea of … Continue reading
Posted in MInd, Morality, Provisional Conclusions
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Salman Rushdie, Two Quotes
Yesterday’s (print) New York Times Book Review, the Inside the List commentary, discussing Salman Rushdie’s new novel. (Paul Di Filippo’s review, posted last Friday, was seen by Rushdie himself, who tweeted it to his 1M+ followers — you can see … Continue reading
Posted in Narrative, Provisional Conclusions, Quote at Length, Religion
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Ben Carson follow-up
I wrapped up my previous post about Ben Carson a bit too hastily, because I do have a fairly solid provisional conclusion about why some people don’t “believe” in science and ascribe instead to faith or various subjectively attractive supernatural … Continue reading
Posted in Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Science, Thinking
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About Ben Carson
Ben Carson is the Republican presidential candidate, a non-politician (like Trump and Fiorina), who has a calm demeanor and is reportedly a brilliant neurosurgeon. And is also a creationist, who dismisses evolution and the Big Bang as “fairy tales”. How … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Evolution, Provisional Conclusions
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