Category Archives: Politics

Links and Comments: Trump; Democrats v Republicans; American exceptionalism; government regulations

Posted on Saturday 19 March 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

As Donald Trump seems to be on the path to claiming the Republican nomination for president, Republicans who are appalled by him are increasingly expressing misgivings. Salon has this fascinating article about how some Republican pundits admit that the crude … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Trump; Magic; Scalia and science; Cruz; God of the gaps

Posted on Sunday 13 March 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Partly because I’ve had a cold, or a couple different colds, for much of the past month, I’m behind on links and comments. So relatively briefly, here’s what I’ve collected. In reverse order, from most recent date. \\ Slate: “How … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Politics, Religion, science fiction | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Trump; Magic; Scalia and science; Cruz; God of the gaps

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: Fear, Terrorism, Fear, and Religion

Posted on Tuesday 12 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The New Yorker, January 2, 2016: Thinking Rationally About Terror, by Lawrence M. Krauss How people overestimate the risk of low-probability (but highly-publicized) dangers, like terrorism, and seldom worry about more mundane dangers, like gun violence and auto crashes. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Fear, Terrorism, Fear, and Religion

Review of David Silverman

Posted on Wednesday 6 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The book is FIGHTING GOD: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World, just published in December 2015, and I’m not linking it with a cover image as I often do with books I review, since I can’t especially approve of … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Book Notes, Culture, Politics, Religion, Social Progress | Comments Off on Review of David Silverman

The Yearning for the Golden Past

Posted on Thursday 31 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

The Conservative Grand Narrative, according to Jonathan Haidt (mentioned in my discussion of his book The Righteous Mind in this post) is about “the struggle to return to a golden past” — a theme we hear echoed in Republican presidential … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Politics and Religion

Posted on Monday 21 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Three items by Jeffrey Tayler at Salon recently. First, in what I might call the pot-kettle-black category, Religion is the real problem: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and GOP demonize Muslims, but too afraid to take on the real truth, where … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Politics and Religion

Elizabeth Kolbert on Climate Change and Florida

Posted on Sunday 20 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Fine essay by Elizabeth Kolbert — whose 2014 book The Sixth Extinction I greatly admired — in the current New Yorker, The Siege of Miami, about how rising sea levels are already affecting that city. This dovetails with my previous … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Science | Comments Off on Elizabeth Kolbert on Climate Change and Florida

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

Links and Comments from Sunday’s New York Times

Posted on Tuesday 15 December 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I’m finishing up a book by Chris Mooney that explores motivated reasoning and how we are all subject to seeking out evidence that confirms our pre-existing views, and disputing evidence that challenges those views. And that nevertheless claims that conservatives/Republicans … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, Religion, Social Progress, Thinking | Comments Off on Links and Comments from Sunday’s New York Times