Mark R. Kelly
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Recent Posts
- Links and Comments 19 Feb 2021
- Notes and Quotes: Ray Bradbury on Good, Evil, and Knowledge
- Links and Comments: Reality as a Common Ground
- Links and Comments: RL, as despicable as DJT
- Links and Comments: Republicans and Doing the Right Thing, Not; Religion as LARP
- Links and Comments: Astronomical Photos from APOD
- Nonfiction Notes: Matthew Hutson’s The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
- Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY
- Links and Comments: Political Matters This Week: 11 Feb 2021
- Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING
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Monthly Archives: November 2015
Sunday’s New York Times: Links and Comments
Opinion column by Curt Stager: Tales of a Warmer Planet. This relates to my suspicion and prediction that efforts to ameliorate climate change will come too little and too late — because human nature cannot respond to a potential threat … Continue reading
Links and Comments: Sacred truths, Catholic priorities, and Santorum advice, vs. Individualism and the arc of moral history
A number of items in recent days about issues of society and culture vs. individualism, which I will compile and quote without necessarily trying to draw any conclusions just yet… These issues renovate with the Jonathan Haidt book I’m still … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Morality, Religion
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Links and Comments: Haidt, Krugman, Cruz and Swanson, Evolution v Creationism and Iowa Home-Schoolers
I am 3/4 of the way through that Jonathan Haidt book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, which is almost revelatory in the sense that it provides a vocabulary and a theoretical framework for … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Morality, Politics, Psychology, Religion
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Links and Comments: Bruni on Cruz; Flip-flopping presidents are most effective; political persuasion; Republicans’ economic narrative; Lisa Randall, a new Trek
From last Sunday’s New York Times: Frank Bruni on Ted Cruz’s Laughable Disguise He emphatically recalls how his father’s embrace of Jesus Christ led him back to his mother — and to him — after his parents had separated. He … Continue reading
Posted in Narrative, Politics, Psychology, Science
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Review of Alastair Reynolds’ SLOW BULLETS
Alastair Reynolds’ short novel SLOW BULLETS – the latest in a series of short novels from Tachyon Publications, following among others Nancy Kress’s Yesterday’s Kin and Daryl Gregory’s We Are All Completely Fine, both awards winners – is a spectacular … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction, Species Reset
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The World’s Young: a review of Robert Charles Wilson’s THE AFFINITIES
Robert Charles Wilson’s THE AFFINITIES is ‘social’ science fiction in the most literal sense. (I seem to recall how Isaac Asimov made the distinction between hard SF, social SF, and social satire – the latter being Huxley, Orwell, and the … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction
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Reading Haidt, arcs of history, false balance, how liberal views are closer to the truth, and science fiction
Beginning to read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion today, an eloquent, insightful exploration into how the parameters of human psychology explain the range of political and religious differences. I wrote a … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, MInd, Morality, Politics, Provisional Conclusions
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Links and Comments: Raising Kids with or without faith; Benford hosts evolution debate; the Lake Wobegon Effect
Slate: “Why Hold a Child Hostage to My Doubts?” The confusing, complicated desire of parents with no religion to raise their kids with faith. Why would parents with no religion think their kids need to be raised into a faith … Continue reading
Posted in Children, Evolution, MInd, Provisional Conclusions, Religion
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Rereading Early Heinlein, part 3: If This Goes On
Heinlein’s earliest serial — that is, a long story requiring a split into parts across two or more issues of a magazine — was “If This Goes On–“, published in the February and March 1940 issues of Astounding magazine. He … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Heinlein, Religion, science fiction
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Jeffrey Tayler on Ben Carson; Frank Bruni on lies about gays and transgenders and Houston; Lee McIntyre on science denialism; how Einstein, proved right again and again over the past century, was resisted on political grounds
Salon: You know Ben Carson is crazy, right? Let’s discuss the craziest things he actually believes Jeffrey Tayler summarizes Carson’s Seventh Adventist faith — a faith built upon a failed prediction of the end of the world, back in 1843, … Continue reading
Posted in Lunacy, Physics, Psychology, Religion
Comments Off on Jeffrey Tayler on Ben Carson; Frank Bruni on lies about gays and transgenders and Houston; Lee McIntyre on science denialism; how Einstein, proved right again and again over the past century, was resisted on political grounds