Category Archives: Culture

Link and Comment: Terrorism and Republican Fear-Mongering

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne points to an essay by Lawrence Krauss, in The New Yorker: Thinking Rationally About Terror. Krauss’ essay addresses the fairly obvious fact that incidents of ‘terrorism’, despite the publicity they get and panic they trigger, are very rare … Continue reading →

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Review of David Silverman

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The book is FIGHTING GOD: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World, just published in December 2015, and I’m not linking it with a cover image as I often do with books I review, since I can’t especially approve of … Continue reading →

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The Yearning for the Golden Past

Posted on Thursday 31 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

The Conservative Grand Narrative, according to Jonathan Haidt (mentioned in my discussion of his book The Righteous Mind in this post) is about “the struggle to return to a golden past” — a theme we hear echoed in Republican presidential … Continue reading →

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Chris Mooney’s THE REPUBLICAN BRAIN

Posted on Friday 18 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

As I alluded in my previous post, I’ve been reading Chris Mooney’s 2012 book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality, which explores how psychology can inform the obvious fact that different people react … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from last Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on Thursday 10 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, a Sunday Review front page essay by Maria Konnikova, Born to Be Conned. It’s about how people are “suckers for belief”, about confidence games, with insights into human nature, e.g. Monte operators, like all good con men, are exceptional … Continue reading →

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Sunday’s New York Times: Links and Comments

Posted on Monday 30 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Links and Comments: Sacred truths, Catholic priorities, and Santorum advice, vs. Individualism and the arc of moral history

Posted on Tuesday 24 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Links and Comments: Haidt, Krugman, Cruz and Swanson, Evolution v Creationism and Iowa Home-Schoolers

Posted on Friday 20 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Reading Haidt, arcs of history, false balance, how liberal views are closer to the truth, and science fiction

Posted on Thursday 12 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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Links and Comments from Today’s New York Times: 25 Oct 2015

Posted on Sunday 25 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

You can’t escape human nature: Norway Has a New Passion: Ghost Hunting. As traditional religion has faded in many northern European nations, it’s being replaced in Norway by an increased tendency to perceive ghosts at every corner. Ghosts, or at … Continue reading →

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