Category Archives: Science

David Deutsch, THE FABRIC OF REALITY

Posted on Wednesday 2 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its Implications. Published Aug. 1997 by Allen Lane, Penguin Press. 390pp, of which 24pp are bibliography and index. Here is a book that took me a year and a half to read, but was … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, Physics, Science | Comments Off

Ls&Cs: How People Think, or Not

Posted on Wednesday 23 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I continue to be fascinated about how people think, or don’t think, and how they draw or maintain conclusions about the world around them. The particular things believed aren’t the point, exactly.

Posted in Politics, Psychology, Science | Comments Off

Ls&Qs&Cs: Regressive Agendas

Posted on Tuesday 22 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Three posts today about versions of the Republican agenda.

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Science | Comments Off

Fareed Zakaria, TEN LESSONS FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD (2020)

Posted on Tuesday 15 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s the next book with a numbered agenda up for summary (following Harari’s 21 Lessons). It came out in October 2020, with journalistic promptness just six or seven months after the beginning of the lockdown, though before vaccines became available … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Science | Comments Off

Ls&Qs&Cs: Kids with Lice; Grifters; Moral Panics; USA #1; Backward We Go

Posted on Monday 7 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on current links I’ve saved from web-browsing over the past few days. First a Facebook meme: Kids with Lice

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Links & Comments, Science, Technology | Comments Off

Ls&Cs: Scientific Literacy and Peer Review

Posted on Wednesday 2 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Only a whiff of politics in today’s posts, about the current pandemic and public understanding of science, and the practice of scientific pre-prints.

Posted in Links & Comments, Science | Comments Off

L&Cs: More Misleading Maps; Piedmont Park

Posted on Sunday 30 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

More interesting juxtapositions showing how flat maps, especially Mercator projections, give misleading impressions of the relative sizes of areas on Earth. Plus, an endpiece, about Piedmont Park.

Posted in Culture, Science | Comments Off

Ls&Cs: Harari on Climate Change

Posted on Wednesday 26 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Yuval Noah Harari has an essay in the current issue of Time Magazine about the cost of tackling climate change.

Posted in Culture, Economics, Science | Comments Off

Ls&Cs: Engagement with the Universe

Posted on Monday 24 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Two contrasting perspectives, today, both passages I just happened to read during my morning web browsing. Rival worldviews. One characterizing religious myths, the other about Kim Stanley Robinson.

Posted in Religion, Science, science fiction | Comments Off

Ls&Cs: Misleading Maps

Posted on Saturday 22 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one of my favorite counter-intuitive facts: how our impressions of the sizes of countries and continents that we get from (flat) maps are wildly inaccurate.