Search Results for: how the mind works

Steven Pinker’s HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 5

Posted on Tuesday 27 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Several quotes, in addition to those already provided. From Chapter 3, Pinker makes an essential point about how natural selection works. People aren’t driven by their genes to reproduce or even survive — not consciously; people are driven by their … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 4

Posted on Monday 26 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Chapter 8, “The Meaning of Life,” is the last 45 page chapter of this 565 page (counting only text) book. Here he covers matters of human culture, much as Wilson did at the end of his 1978 book. Given that … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 3

Posted on Sunday 25 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Chapter 7, “Family Values,” about the psychology of social relations, is the longest chapter in the book, and second-to-last. The author begins by recalling that period in the 1960s when activists and folk singers called for peace and understanding, a … Continue reading →

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Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 2

Posted on Saturday 24 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

The last few chapters are especially rich and fascinating. Here’s Chapter 6, about human emotions. Ch6, Hotheads

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Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 1

Posted on Friday 23 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned this book a few days ago and quoted from it. Now I’ve finished it and will summarize and highlight. As I said earlier, I’ve had this book since it was published in 1997 (I have a first edition, … Continue reading →

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How to Understand How the World Actually Works

Posted on Friday 26 September 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How pediatricians deal with Trump’s advice; How the shooters aren’t necessarily right-wing or left-wing, but simply internet trolls (and anyway, Trump is lying); While there are right-wingers vowing to take out “progressive leftism”; Headlines about Trump’s corruption, Hegseth’s warrior culture … Continue reading →

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Charlie Kirk, and the Simplex Republican Mindset

Posted on Wednesday 10 September 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

The assassination of Charlie Kirk, and reflecting on past political assassinations; Despite RFK Jr., there is no single cause to autism; Braeden Sorbo as another right-wing Republican, like Charlie Kirk, who thinks women shouldn’t have the right to vote; Paul … Continue reading →

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How Doing Your Own Research Actually Works, and the Texas Floods

Posted on Sunday 6 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Adam-Troy Castro on people who “do their own research”; And how RFK Jr. is ignoring decades of research into autism that have already answered his questions; Debates about whether Trump/MAGA’s cuts to weather agencies had a role to play in … Continue reading →

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How It Works. How They Work.

Posted on Thursday 3 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How it works: Republican megadonors get megacontracts to run ICE concentration camps; How they work: Republicans are even less pluralistic than they’ve ever been; Robert Reich on the familiar reasons authoritarians suppress education, and what “conservative ideas” might possibly be; … Continue reading →

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George Lakoff, THE POLITICAL MIND

Posted on Monday 6 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain” (Viking, June 2008, 292pp, including 20pp of acknowledgements, notes, and index.) Note that the paperback edition from 2009 changed the subtitle to “A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your … Continue reading →

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