Category Archives: Evolution

Girls and Boys and Evolutionary Psychology

Posted on Thursday 19 June 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Apparently there’s a worldwide shift in preference for baby girls over baby boys, reversing an age-old bias; The article cited doesn’t explain the evolutionary rationales for these shifting preferences, but I will; And Sophie’s Choice; And it reveals reasons why … Continue reading →

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Substack as the new Royal Society, vs MAGA waging war on the future

Posted on Wednesday 21 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Will Substack be the Royal Society of the 21st century? While Trump and MAGA wage war on the future; Robert Reich on *why* Trump and his regime want to destroy every institution in America; And my running theme about the … Continue reading →

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We’re Living in an Age of Regression

Posted on Tuesday 13 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

In Trump’s America, it’s every parent and child out for themselves; Who decides who’s Christian? The government? Fox News says the Qatari bribe to Trump is fine because FDR gave three planes to the Saudis… 80 years ago; Robert Reich … Continue reading →

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Adolescence of Boys, and of the Species

Posted on Saturday 29 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

For once we happened to watch a much-discussed current show only a week after it debuted (instead of months later or years later). This is the Netflix show Adolescence (Wikipedia link). It’s four hour-long episodes, about a 13-year-old boy in … Continue reading →

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Dispatches from Reality

Posted on Saturday 15 March 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Taking a day off from political posts, for posts about reality. Or at least, the exploration of reality. Mathematicians solve a 125-year-old problem, perhaps; OnlySky’s Dale McGowan about the evolutionary mismatch between the world we evolved in, and the modern … 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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Faith, Consolation, Reality

Posted on Saturday 4 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple weeks ago I noted, without any kind of deep analysis, a David Brooks essay about his experience of faith, and how it involved random emotional feelings of transcendence and nothing about perceiving the actual nature of reality. OnlySky, … Continue reading →

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César Hidalgo, WHY INFORMATION GROWS

Posted on Monday 4 November 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies” (Basic Books, 2015, xxi + 232 pp, including 51pp of acknowledgements, notes, and index) A few weeks ago I sat down to read the new Yuval Noah Harari book, NEXUS, and … Continue reading →

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Passages from Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins

Posted on Tuesday 17 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How unusual is this? An esteemed scientist, Brian Greene, with an Opinion piece in a major paper. (I just reviewed his book UNTIL THE END OF TIME ending here.) Washington Post, Brian Greene, 16 Sep 2024: Opinion | Decades later, … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Evolution | Comments Off on Passages from Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins

The Debate, Politics, and Science

Posted on Thursday 12 September 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How Kamala Harris defended fracking and did not properly address climate change; How nothing about science came up in the debate; Short items: How MAGA will fall for anything; how Trumps confessed he’s unprepared; how the GOP has become the … Continue reading →

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