Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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» Previous Views from Medina Road (2003-2013)
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- Tribal Human Nature Fights Back
- Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 5
- Life carries on and on and on and on
- Far, Far Better Thing?
- Subjective Worlds
- Lies and More Lies, and Fans Who Don’t Care
- The Incoherency of Religious Rationales
- Never Mind Policy or Principles, Conservatives Need Only Stories
- We tell ourselves stories in order to live
- Perhaps There Is Only Story
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Meta
Category Archives: Evolution
Understanding Human Nature
Ultimately, everything in the daily news makes sense through an honest understanding of human nature. (It is not there are two legitimate “sides” to every issue.) Two thought pieces for today, then a bunch of shorter items. About how macaques … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Evolution, Human Progress, Humanism, Philosophy
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Loyalty vs. Principles
Three threads today, all related. Considering whistle-blowing as an example of wrestling loyalty vs. principles, and how this applies to Trump and his followers; Related items about how Trump supporters vow to “lie, cheat, and steal”; how Donald Trump knows … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Morality
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Change Control
How even modest measures to ameliorate problems in NYC face resistance; How religious certitudes from Alito and others will not end well. Still under the weather, but let’s try a couple items from today’s NYT, about perhaps the broadest issue … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Evolution, Morality, Social Progress
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Can Education Account for Evolutionary Change?
Steven Pinker on education, and how it might prioritize overcoming base intuitions that don’t apply in the modern world; The naturalistic fallacy and DeSantis’ and Fetterman’s objections to lab-grown meat. This month I’m working my way through the last ‘big’ … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Education, Evolution, Psychology
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Violence, Evolution, Climate Change, and Cory Doctorow’s THE LOST CAUSE
How Republicans increasingly advocate violence; How Tucker Carlson doesn’t understand evolution, and his several dumb objections to evolution; How 10 straight months of record-breaking temperatures won’t persuade the skeptics; And a passage from Cory Doctorow’s 2023 novel The Lost Cause … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Evolution, science fiction
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Third Essay of the Weekend
An Elizabeth Kolbert essay about the debate about the term “Anthropocene”; And Neil Finn’s beautiful lullaby “Faster than Light”. * This is Elizabeth Kolbert (author of The Sixth Extinction, one of the best nonfiction books of the 21st century; review … Continue reading
Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 3
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
Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, MInd, Psychology, Steven Pinker
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Small-town America and Democracy; Competitive Exclusion; and How that Flat Earth Debate Worked Out
How small-town America hasn’t been good for democracy; How conflicts like Palestine/Israel might be resolved through evolutionary concept of “competitive exclusion”; Quick takes about that flat Earth debate based on scripture; how different Christians claim diametrically opposite things; and Slate’s … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Evolution, Politics, Religion
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Bathing, Evidence, Control, Dating, Social Security
Why daily bathing (just like trying to kill every germ in sight) may not be healthy; Items about Republican admissions they don’t have evidence for their claims; how they take credit for what they voted against; how the party of … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Evolution, Politics
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Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3
This is my third post, following this one in March and this one in June, in which I consider the John Brockman book The Last Unknowns, in which he gathers deep unanswered questions about “the universe, the mind, the future … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Religion, Science
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