Category Archives: Evolution

Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Posted on Tuesday 7 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I had forgotten I had, relatively speaking; I obviously bought it back in 2006 or so, but I didn’t read it right away and so it sat on my shelves among many other books (by Sagan and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Sean Carroll, THE BIG PICTURE

Posted on Friday 3 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Sean Carroll’s THE BIG PICTURE: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, just published May 10th, is an ambitious, wide-ranging book not so much about cosmology (Carroll’s specialty at CalTech), as about the perspective we gain through … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Evolution, Heinlein, Human Progress, Meaning, Morality, Philosophy, Physics, Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Ten Commandments | Comments Off on Sean Carroll, THE BIG PICTURE

Links and Comments: Terrorists and Threats

Posted on Thursday 24 March 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Cartoon by Mark Fiore: Thank You. Love, ISIS. Why? A piece by Nicholas Kristof in today’s NY Times explains. It’s called Overreacting to Terrorism? online and “Terrorists, Tubs and Snakes” in the print paper. The basic problem is this: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Evolution | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Terrorists and Threats

Links and Comments: Susan Jacoby; Erasure; Boars and the Sixth Extinction; Jerry Brown and Jean-Pierre Dupuy

Posted on Tuesday 9 February 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

From last Sunday’s papers, the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. » NYT: Susan Jacoby: Sick and Tired of ‘God Bless America’ Well, of course; this is someone daring to point out the obvious, mostly unmentioned privilege that … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Evolution, Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Susan Jacoby; Erasure; Boars and the Sixth Extinction; Jerry Brown and Jean-Pierre Dupuy

Links and Comments: Science and Math and Religion

Posted on Monday 21 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Radio interview with Lee Goldman, MD, about his new book Too Much of a Good Thing, subtitled “How Four Key Survival Traits Are Now Killing Us”. This is about the familiar idea that our species is optimized for survival in … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Evolution, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Science and Math and Religion

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 →

Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Politics | Comments Off on Chris Mooney’s THE REPUBLICAN BRAIN

Harper’s on Environmentalism, etc.

Posted on Friday 11 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

More from the November Harper’s. Fascinating article by James K. Boyce, Rethinking Extinction, subtitled “Toward a less gloomy environmentalism”. This is best-read in the context of understanding the impact of humanity on the planet, not just in recent decades, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, MInd | Comments Off on Harper’s on Environmentalism, etc.

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 →

Posted in Culture, Evolution, Morality, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Sunday’s New York Times: Links and Comments

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 →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Morality, Politics, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Haidt, Krugman, Cruz and Swanson, Evolution v Creationism and Iowa Home-Schoolers

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 →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, MInd, Morality, Politics, Provisional Conclusions | Comments Off on Reading Haidt, arcs of history, false balance, how liberal views are closer to the truth, and science fiction