Category Archives: Conservative Resistance

Links and Comments: Expertise, Dunning-Kruger, Tactics of Denialists

Posted on Monday 10 April 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

NPR’s Adam Frank on Why Expertise Matters, commenting in part about Tom Nichols new book The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. Frank quotes a couple key passages from Nichols: Nichols is profoundly troubled … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Psychology | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Expertise, Dunning-Kruger, Tactics of Denialists

Links and Comments: Conservative Cruelty; Blue Lies

Posted on Wednesday 29 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Chauncey DeVega at Alternet: Why Are Republicans So Relentlessly Cruel to the Poor?. Subtitle: “Paul Ryan has dreamed of slashing Medicaid since his keg-party days—and that blithe hostility is widespread”. Because conservatives are more inclined to think that poor people … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, MInd | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Conservative Cruelty; Blue Lies

Media Bubbles and Fake News

Posted on Wednesday 15 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

There was a fascinating piece on NPR’s Morning Edition Tuesday morning, about an analysis of news media sites shared on Facebook and Twitter during the election campaign, aligned by allegiance to Trump or Clinton. The researchers stressed how neutral they … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture | Comments Off on Media Bubbles and Fake News

Links and Comments: Radiohead; Originalism; Principia; Trump brain rot; Homeschooling; Art v Religion

Posted on Tuesday 7 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on links saved over the past week or so. Vox: Radiohead and sadness: a data analysis. Fascinating. \\\ Vox: Judicial originalism as myth It’s always struck me that Judicial originalism — the idea that nothing can be inferred … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Radiohead; Originalism; Principia; Trump brain rot; Homeschooling; Art v Religion

Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Fundamentalist Christianity

Posted on Friday 3 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Some ten weeks ago, and about a month after the election, I made the observation (in this post) that many, perhaps most people live in a kind of “post-fact” or “alternative fact” (that term came later) reality, by virtue of … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics | Comments Off on Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Fundamentalist Christianity

The Enlightenment and This Moment in American Culture

Posted on Wednesday 1 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From Washington Post, a week or so ago: Harvard scientist worries we’re ‘reverting to a pre-Enlightenment form of thinking’ Prompted by how some presidents — Bush 43, and now Trump — are actively pushing back against scientific findings and research. … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Human Progress | Comments Off on The Enlightenment and This Moment in American Culture

Is Trump the problem, or also his voters?

Posted on Monday 27 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I have a link saved from a few days ago of a column by Nicholas Kristof called Trump Voters Are Not the Enemy, which he tweeted a cautionary note about not demonizing the people who voted for Trump. It’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Psychology | Comments Off on Is Trump the problem, or also his voters?

Quotes on American Anti-Intellectualism

Posted on Friday 24 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Isaac Asimov, 1980: There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Reason; Christian victimhood; dead progressives; dystopias; Republican blondes; the fight for reason; fake history

Posted on Tuesday 21 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From an Elizabeth Kolbert essay in next weekend’s New York Times Magazine: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds, subtitled “New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.” One way to look at science is as a system … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Psychology, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Reason; Christian victimhood; dead progressives; dystopias; Republican blondes; the fight for reason; fake history

Links and Comments: Trump’s Lies; Right Wing Media; Christian Education Agenda; Blowfish Fallacy

Posted on Saturday 18 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate’s Will Oremus compiled The Lies, Exaggerations, and Obfuscations That Came Out of Trump’s Mouth While He Called the Media “Dishonest”. Bottom line: When Trump or his advisers say things that aren’t true, it’s not their fault; the real villains … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Trump’s Lies; Right Wing Media; Christian Education Agenda; Blowfish Fallacy