Category Archives: Psychology

A Month’s Worth of Links and Comments

Posted on Friday 1 May 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times, March 20: In the Age of Information, Specializing to Survive The Internet makes it easy to learn almost anything. And yet And yet, even as the highbrow holy grail — the acquisition of complete knowledge — seems … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Culture, Economics, Evolution, MInd, Morality, Narrative, Psychology, Religion, Science, The Gays | Comments Off on A Month’s Worth of Links and Comments

Naïve Physics

Posted on Friday 24 April 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

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 | Comments Off on Naïve Physics

Links and Comments: Pale Blue Dot; 10 Commandments; Evolution; Tribalistic thinking; Answers for Creationists

Posted on Friday 13 March 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I have a batch of links with notes from almost a month ago that I never got around to posting. Let me catch up. On the theme in recent posts of awe-inspiring graphics or videos, here’s a piece by Phil … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Evolution, Psychology, Religion, Science, Ten Commandments | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Pale Blue Dot; 10 Commandments; Evolution; Tribalistic thinking; Answers for Creationists

Links and Comments: Perceiving Reality; Controlling the Narrative

Posted on Wednesday 4 March 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Several key posts from last week, that I want to capture before I’m on the road for another couple days. First, the viral dress thing is possibly the most widely circulated example ever of how you can’t always believe what … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Perceiving Reality; Controlling the Narrative

Links and Comments: Robert Wright on Brian Williams; Obama on Christianity; Children of Gay Parents; Republicans and evolution

Posted on Thursday 12 February 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Robert Wright — author of among other books The Moral Animal (1994), one of the best books I’ve read about how evolutionary psychology affects human culture and relationships — offers his perspective, in New Republic, on how Brian Williams Is … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Memory is Fallible; Fundamentalists Are Alike All Over

Posted on Tuesday 10 February 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple informed articles appeared today about the Brian Williams kerfuffle, how the NBC News anchor was discovered to have inflated his account, increasingly over the years, of being on a helicopter in the Iraq War in 2003, and speculation … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Memory is Fallible; Fundamentalists Are Alike All Over

Scientific fidelity vs narrative; anti-gay bigotry and socialism; the ecology of faith; Valerie Tarico on religion; Hans Zimmer and conceptual breakthrough

Posted on Tuesday 18 November 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one of several articles in the past week or so about why we should not nitpick the science in Interstellar: Slate: Back Off, Scientists: Don’t be so nitpicky about the technical details of sci-fi movies like Interstellar I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Films, MInd, Music, Psychology, Religion, The Gays | Comments Off on Scientific fidelity vs narrative; anti-gay bigotry and socialism; the ecology of faith; Valerie Tarico on religion; Hans Zimmer and conceptual breakthrough

Heroic Individuals and Magical Thinking

Posted on Tuesday 28 October 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Two interesting article from today’s Science section of The New York Times. From science writer Dennis Overbye: The Leaky Science of Hollywood. The subject is the upcoming film The Theory of Everything, a biopic of Stephen Hawking, which is getting … Continue reading →

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Recent Links and Comments: Do You Believe in Blue?

Posted on Friday 15 August 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on three weeks of content, having been preoccupied by personal projects and various life changes. Divided into groups. Science Fascinating speculation by Steve Pinker on the evolutionary significance of music Pinker argues that in fact that music is not an … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, MInd, Psychology, Religion, Science, The Gays, Thinking | Comments Off on Recent Links and Comments: Do You Believe in Blue?

Sean Carroll: The Meaning of Life

Posted on Saturday 31 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I was checking out Sean Carroll’s blog today, and saw this post with a YouTube excerpt of comments he made during a debate with Michael Shermer, Dinesh D’Souza, and Ian Hutchinson. Can’t resist quoting extensively, since he summarizes much of … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Psychology, Quote at Length, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Sean Carroll: The Meaning of Life