Category Archives: Thinking

No One Can Be An Expert on Everything

Posted on 6 June 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

This post by Andrew Sullivan, about GOP denialism of climate change, raises fundamental epistemological questions about how we know *anything*. I’m not a scientist either. I have no expertise in measuring carbon levels back thousands of years; I have no … Continue reading →

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What Would Make Someone Change Their Mind

Posted on 23 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Fascinating essay in The New Yorker by Maria Konnikova, I Don’t Want to Be Right, which addresses the various results that show you just can’t change people’s minds with evidence. Could various pro-vaccination campaigns change parental attitudes toward vaccines? They … Continue reading →

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Thoughts About the Legal Profession

Posted on 16 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Aside from the occasional TV series about lawyers (I followed L.A. Law while it ran, and recently we’ve been watching DVDs of old Perry Mason episodes), I’ve never had much interest in the legal profession, intellectually, and find it hard … Continue reading →

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Tonight’s favorite song: John Grant, Where Dreams Go to Die

Posted on 4 May 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Wikipedia has this post about the album. There’s a lyric here — “I know you know I know you know that I know that you know…” * — that illustrates the idea that human minds are able to speculate on … Continue reading →

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Kalam Cosmological Argument

Posted on 22 April 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the traditional, philosophical, arguments for the existence of God. The idea is that everything must have a beginning; therefore the universe must have a beginning, therefore God. (Which those who use this argument … Continue reading →

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Mind/Brain and Mathematical Intelligence

Posted on 12 April 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Several interesting links today to articles I’ve not yet had a chance to read, but I’ll defer those to note this review in Entertainment Weekly of a book called Struck by Genius by Jason Padgett (and Maureen Seaberg… probably the … Continue reading →

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Sophisticated Theology, Proofs of God, Humanism, Religious Persecution, Morality

Posted on 20 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

I got the book! You know, the one with the best arguments for God Jerry Coyne lists books to read before criticizing atheism (just as theists keep issuing books about the ‘best’ arguments for god which they insists atheists must … Continue reading →

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God and Morality

Posted on 17 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

The US is an outlier among nations whose peoples believe that belief in God is essential to morality. http://www.alternet.org/belief/no-you-dont-need-god-be-good-person The trend across the world is mirrored within the US: Not coincidentally, led again by Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, nine of … Continue reading →

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Truth-Claims?

Posted on 17 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Jerry Coyne links to Sam Harris’ characterization of Christianity, in a long exchange with Nature science writer Philip Ball. There are more polite versions of this, but for anyone who did not grow up with this narrative and is an … Continue reading →

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A Fellow Heir of Carl Sagan

Posted on 13 March 2014 by Mark R. Kelly

Via Friendly Atheist, this post of a Tale of a lapsed Christian who grew up in a household that mocked Carl Sagan when the first Cosmos series was aired. In my childhood home, Carl Sagan was a fundamentalist caricature of … Continue reading →

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