Only time for a quick post today, again, ironically about a fundamental theological issue. What is the essential difference between science and religion, between a way of thinking and a way of not thinking but merely conforming to community traditions, or “believing’ whatever makes you feel good? (In a deep sense this difference, or conflict, comes from not asking the right questions. But that’s a subject for another time.)
Another optimistic take on part of current affairs (not politics). Plus: alternative math, and political items.
So David Crosby died today. I only acquired a couple three of this group’s albums over the years, and from them, this is my favorite song.
Update 23 Jan 23: This post here and on Fb may strike some as inappropriate, because though David Crosby sang these songs, he did not write them, and I didn’t realize that. Numerous sites in recent days that have compiled the best David Crosby songs, which of course don’t include these. This Wikipedia page for the album reveals that this song was written by Stephen Stills.
As has been widely reported on the news, even nationally, California has experienced a nearly unprecedented series of storms moving in from the Pacific in what are called “atmospheric rivers,” some ten storms since late December, with only partial day breaks in between. Continue reading
How civilization might have been driven by the desire for alcohol; about the NYT interviewing Republicans; the perspective on conspiratorial thinking from an American living in Britain; paranoia and the GOP; DeSantis’ war on “wokeness”; Paul Waldman on 6 things people believe about politics that are wrong.
And pasta.
David Brooks on how America is on the right track; Ezra Klein on the fractured Republican Party; and items about gas stoves, red states and their blue cities, the partisan divide in COVID deaths, and how politics doesn’t do nuance.
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Vox, Kelsey Piper, 11 Jan 2023: Why is science slowing down?, subtitled “Science is the engine of society, and the decline of truly disruptive research is a warning sign for all of us.”
Is this really a new problem? Or one of those issues that keeps welling up in popular media because the answer is not well-understood?
Let’s begin with an item from December, on a website called Topia: A World of Good, promoted on Facebook today by David Brin since it reproduces a list Brin compiled on his own blog some time ago.
21 COSMIC WEBSITES YOU NEED TO KNOW: How big is space? Sci-fi legend David Brin investigates
These sites display the scientific urge to understand a universe that humans cannot correctly perceive intuitively.
Here’s a book I read near the end of last year that, like the Dawkins book recently reviewed, is a book directed at young people. Like the Dawkins, it’s heavily illustrated; unlike that, Harari’s book is essentially a rewrite of a book he has already written, his popular and bestselling SAPIENS from 2015 (my review here), aimed at younger readers. Apparently the first of several books. This one is subtitled “Vol. 1: How Humans Took Over the World.”
Today’s reading is yet another example of how narratives — stories that simplify the world and make it more understandable, even if they’re completely fictional — dominate so many people’s beliefs, especially in politics, that they amount to a denial of reality. (This isn’t about that anthology that tries to correct myths of American history; this is about what’s happening right now.)
