Category Archives: Evolution

Some Sciency Bits

Posted on 11 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Richard Dawkins on the ancestral language of DNA; How humans have interpreted fossils throughout history; Recalling the scientifically inaccurate and intellectually hostile movie Armageddon, from 1998; How an article about a refinement to our understanding of human evolution overstates its … Continue reading →

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Ideology vs. Reality, Endlessly

Posted on 3 July 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Is this the core issue to rule them all? Since the survival of humanity seems to be in the balance? Item’s today: How the Supreme Court’s anti-LGBTQ case should never have been brought; How the rise of the religious far … Continue reading →

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Primitive Priorities of Survival: The Conservative Mindset

Posted on 21 June 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s something going on with the conservative mindset that isn’t what they say it is. Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 21 Jun 2023: “Too stupid to know better”: MAGA eats up Trump’s idiot president defense, subtitled “Evangelicals, in particular, feel a flock … Continue reading →

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Tribalism and Cooperation

Posted on 1 June 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s topics: How tribalism, evolutionary evolved, solved some problems and created others, especially in the modern world; The counter idea of “coöperism”; Current events about Chick-fil-A and Republican condemnation of anti-racism. I talk of politics as manifesting ‘tribalism’ a lot; … Continue reading →

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False Ideas of Human Nature

Posted on 12 May 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Just one topic for today. Salon, Chauncey DeVega, 12 May 2023: It’s bigger than guns: Why the right does little to stop violence, subtitled “Conservatives have cultivated a negative and hyper-individualistic view of human nature”

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Jerry Coyne on Deepak Chopra, Alex Ross on Max Richter, and others

Posted on 12 April 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne on Deepak Chopra And on the latest argument for the compatibility of science and faith A misleading article on the recent “paradigm” shift in the understanding of human evolution Reviews of new books by Sarah Bakewell and Sarah … Continue reading →

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Evolution Understood and Not Understood

Posted on 9 February 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned those John Brockman anthologies of science essays back on Feb 4th. They’re associated with the website Edge.org, one of those fascinating websites I’ve noticed over the years but have not followed regularly (others are Big Think, Quanta, Aero, … Continue reading →

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Yuval Noah Harari, UNSTOPPABLE US

Posted on 12 January 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I read near the end of last year that, like the Dawkins book recently reviewed, is a book directed at young people. Like the Dawkins, it’s heavily illustrated; unlike that, Harari’s book is essentially a rewrite of … Continue reading →

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Richard Dawkins, FLIGHTS OF FANCY: Defying Gravity by Design & Evolution

Posted on 4 January 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

This book was released in the UK in November 2021 — here’s its Amazon UK page — and was announced for US release in May 2022. I ordered the latter when it came out; here is its Amazon.com page. Turns … Continue reading →

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Doom and Existential Dread

Posted on 11 December 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

About the stages of the Republican Party’s terminal illness (doom); and about why conservatives disapprove of same-sex relationships more than any number of other supposed Biblical sins (existential dread); and my explanation for the latter.

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