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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Meta
Category Archives: Physics
Jeffrey Tayler on Ben Carson; Frank Bruni on lies about gays and transgenders and Houston; Lee McIntyre on science denialism; how Einstein, proved right again and again over the past century, was resisted on political grounds
Salon: You know Ben Carson is crazy, right? Let’s discuss the craziest things he actually believes Jeffrey Tayler summarizes Carson’s Seventh Adventist faith — a faith built upon a failed prediction of the end of the world, back in 1843, … Continue reading
Posted in Lunacy, Physics, Psychology, Religion
Comments Off on Jeffrey Tayler on Ben Carson; Frank Bruni on lies about gays and transgenders and Houston; Lee McIntyre on science denialism; how Einstein, proved right again and again over the past century, was resisted on political grounds
Sean Carroll on Everything
The physicist Sean Carroll has a new book coming out next May that I’m looking forward to: The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. Carroll blogs about it here, with an outline. A key … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Physics, Science
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Links and Comments: Fermi Paradox; books by Brian Attebery and Frank Wilczek; Religious suppression; Religious fantasy
NY Times, Dennis Overbye: The Flip Side of Optimism About Life on Other Planets. (The print version was titled “A Case for Why We’re Alone”.) A consideration of the “Fermi paradox”: why, if by reasonable estimates there are likely millions … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Cosmology, Narrative, Physics
Comments Off on Links and Comments: Fermi Paradox; books by Brian Attebery and Frank Wilczek; Religious suppression; Religious fantasy
Links and Comments: Steven Weinberg; Trek vs Wars; How the world is getting better; Undermining the Bible
Here’s a archival essay by Steven Weinberg, whose new book I just reviewed in previous post: A Designer Universe?. This is the essay in which Weinberg wrote this oft-quoted passage (though usually only its final line, here bolded): Where religion … Continue reading
Links and Comments: Modern Physics; Evolution and Strangers; Coming out in totalitarian societies; Elizabeth Kolbert on Mars
Sunday’s New York Times has a “Gray Matter” essay on A Crisis at the Edge of Physics by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser* is about whether the empirical method — validating theories via predictions and evidence — does not work … Continue reading
Naïve Physics
Here’s a fascinating article from The Conversation: Infections of the mind: why anti-vaxxers just ‘know’ they’re right (via). My interest in this piece isn’t about anti-vaxxers per se, it’s about the more general issue of how people form beliefs, what … Continue reading
Posted in Physics, Psychology
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Links and Comments: the vastness of the universe; Hubble photos; the physics of everyday life; science books; creationists and the possibility of alien life
Vox: 11 images that capture the incredible vastness of space. Related: Phil Plait celebrates 25 Years of Cosmic Treasures: Hubble’s 12½ Greatest Hits \\ Physicist Sean Carroll this week references an earlier post that spells out an important point: The … Continue reading
Sean Carroll on the afterlife, life, death, happiness, and our place in the universe
Today chanced upon this video speech by physicist Sean Carroll, on his blog, upon his winning an Emperor Has No Clothes Award, from the Freedom From Religion Foundation — won previously by everyone from Ursula K. Le Guin to Dan … Continue reading
Posted in Cosmology, Evolution, Philosophy, Physics, Religion
Comments Off on Sean Carroll on the afterlife, life, death, happiness, and our place in the universe
Hawking’s Theory of Everything
Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow, THE GRAND DESIGN (2010) This is the most recent book authored (or co-authored) by Stephen Hawking, the well-known brilliant physicist, subject of the recent film The Theory of Everything. The film depicts (in addition to … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Philosophy, Physics, Science
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Links and Comments: Gay Marriage; Evangelical Doomsday; Natural Selection is not a guide to life; Jibbers Crabst; the power of faith, and science, and physics
Slate’s William Saletan: A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage, subtitled, “How to talk to your antigay religious relatives about same-sex unions”. Key points: homosexuality is not a sin, because it’s not a choice; it’s not harmful, but is in fact … Continue reading