Category Archives: Lunacy

Links and Comments: Wackadoodle Coronavirus Advice from the Right

Posted on Wednesday 29 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: How Trump and his son helped make a Covid-19 conspiracy theorist go viral in a matter of hours. A quack doctor with claims about alien DNA, belief in demons, that scientists are making a vaccine to stop people from … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Graphics and Lists

Posted on Sunday 26 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

In thinking about Andrew Sullivan’s old Daily Dish blog, a few posts ago, I dug into my archive directories and found text file saves of bookmarks from various old computers, as far back as 2008, including one from my work … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunacy, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Graphics and Lists

About the Pandemic and Individual Liberty

Posted on Monday 20 July 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

There’s a point to be made about the zealots insisting on individual liberty, when they go ballistic about refusing to wear masks (example links below). Do they bristle at the intrusion on individual liberty that there are laws that prevent … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Visual Illusions and Perception of Reality; Trumpian Gnostic Madness

Posted on Tuesday 23 June 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: Brian Resnick: “Reality” is constructed by your brain. Here’s what that means, and why it matters. Subtitled, What the science of visual illusions can teach us about our polarized world. A long, thorough survey of various topics on one … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Wars on Science; Epistemology; Conspiracy Theories

Posted on Wednesday 27 May 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

A facebook friend comments: “Research” isn’t just googling to find someone saying what you want to hear. That’s confirmation bias, and cherry picking. \\ My own thought, a week ago: The big political conflicts aren’t about asking the same questions … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Conspiracies! Conspiracies!

Posted on Wednesday 20 May 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Over the past several weeks there’s been an outbreak of stories and articles in the various legitimate media (New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, et al) about conspiracy theories related to the coronavirus pandemic. So many articles! … Continue reading →

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Link and Comment: Krugman on Terrorism

Posted on Friday 9 August 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman regularly criticizes President Trump and the entire Republican party for engaging in fantasy economics– the kind of economics, which actually has never worked, that says cutting taxes on the wealthy will spur business and … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Fiction and Truth, Ignorance and Knowledge, Science Denial and the Scientific Attitude

Posted on Monday 27 May 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Three interesting essays this week. In the New York Times Sunday Review section, an essay by Yuval Noah Harari: Why Fiction Trumps Truth, subtitled “We humans know more truths than any species on earth. Yet we also believe the most … Continue reading →

Posted in Changing One's Mind, Lunacy, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Fiction and Truth, Ignorance and Knowledge, Science Denial and the Scientific Attitude

Links and Comments: Petty Rage; EO Wilson; Rutger Bregman; Conservative Causes; Zealots

Posted on Saturday 23 March 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Paul Krugman’s March 11 column, The Power of Petty Personal Rage discusses incidents about plastic straws, hamburgers, and Captain Marvel. The point is that demented anger is a significant factor in modern American political life — and overwhelmingly on one … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Anti-Vaxxers

Posted on Thursday 14 March 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

From Sunday’s New York Times, essay by Frank Bruni: The Real Horror of the Anti-Vaxxers, subtitled “This isn’t just a public health crisis. It’s a public sanity one.” (The print title was “The Anti-Vaxxers’ War on Truth”.) How many studies … Continue reading →

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