Category Archives: Human Progress

Oliver Sacks on Forster and Rees

Posted on 24 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s a short essay by the late Oliver Sacks in current issue of The New Yorker: The Machine Stops. He muses about people walking down the street staring at their phones. Much of this, remarkably, was envisaged by E. M. Forster … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Progress; San Francisco Values; Value of Literature

Posted on 20 January 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

From earlier this month. New York Times, Nicholas Kristoff: Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History!: Once again, the world’s population was living longer and living better than ever before. Kristof does a version of this column every … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Human Progress | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Progress; San Francisco Values; Value of Literature

Links and Comments: World Getting Better; Choosing What to Believe; Questions for Atheists; Mathematical Ideas; Trumpian Cruelty

Posted on 19 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: 23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better. From 2014, but updated this month. These data echo the theme of Steven Pinker’s recent books. File under: human progress, despite conservative paranoia and fears \\ … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Conservative Resistance, Human Progress, Mathematics, Psychology | Comments Off on Links and Comments: World Getting Better; Choosing What to Believe; Questions for Atheists; Mathematical Ideas; Trumpian Cruelty

Links and Comments: Optimists; Bible; Children

Posted on 7 January 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Time Magazine’s current issue is called “The Optimists,” and is edited by Bill Gates. Steven Pinker has a piece: Why We Refuse to See the Bright Side, Even Though We Should According to the latest data, people are living longer … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Culture, Human Progress, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Optimists; Bible; Children

Perspectives: Dozois and Bryson

Posted on 24 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Recently on Facebook, Gardner Dozois quotes from At Home, by Bill Bryson (author of A Short History of Nearly Everything), on the closing years of the 19th century: “From the perspective of domesticity, there has never been a more interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Progress, Technology | Comments Off on Perspectives: Dozois and Bryson

Wright: Nonzero: Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on 7 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve decided to tackle three or four substantial nonfiction books, over the next few weeks, in the manner of reading books for college courses — that is, alternating among them over a quarter or semester-like period of 8 to 10 … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Human Progress, Robert Wright | Comments Off on Wright: Nonzero: Intro and Chapter 1

Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Posted on 6 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is Steven Pinker’s big 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, that takes a long-range view of human history to show that the human condition, over millennia and especially in recent centuries and decades, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Humanism, Steven Pinker | Comments Off on Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Big History

Posted on 3 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve just recently become aware of the concept, and term, “Big History”. It happened when I saw a coffee table book, shown here, at Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago, and glanced through it, noticing two names I recognized: … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Evolution, Human Progress | Comments Off on Big History

The Enlightenment and This Moment in American Culture

Posted on 1 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From Washington Post, a week or so ago: Harvard scientist worries we’re ‘reverting to a pre-Enlightenment form of thinking’ Prompted by how some presidents — Bush 43, and now Trump — are actively pushing back against scientific findings and research. … Continue reading →

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Anthropocene and Harari

Posted on 23 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Is the ‘Anthropocene’ Epoch a Condemnation of Human Interference — or a Call for More?, by Wesley Yang. Noticed firstly as continued evidence of the currency of the term ‘anthropocene’ to refer to … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Human Progress | Comments Off on Anthropocene and Harari