Messier objects; Rebecca Solnit; Jonathan Haidt

Posted on Thursday 14 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A chart showing the actual relative sizes of the Messier objects;
  • Rebecca Solnit on the potential for imminent revolutionary change;
  • Jonathan Haidt’s graduation speech, today.
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Now this is cool. The Messier objects, fuzzy objects in the sky listed in the 18th century Messier Catalog as objects to beware of for comet-spotters, and which were later identified has close nebulae and distant galaxies, have become objects for amateur astronomers to track down, as I did in my teens during summers in Apple Valley in the 1970s.

Astronomy Picture of the Day, Sylvian Villet, today: Messier Catalog at Uniform Scale

I’ll quote their entire brief explanation…
Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Psychology, Social Progress | Comments Off on Messier objects; Rebecca Solnit; Jonathan Haidt

Categories, Scales, a Public Health Triumph, and How the So-Called Experts Have Been Right

Posted on Wednesday 13 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Conservatives like categories, especially binary ones: two examples. Including the claim that what makes a man gay is liberalism;
  • NYT updates its Autocracy Index, 12 markers of democratic erosion;
  • Conservative panic over falling reproduction rates seen instead as a public health triumph;
  • Paul Krugman reminds us that all the “so-called experts” who ridiculed Trump’s plans and goals have turned out to be right;
  • Short items on the upcoming Christian revival in DC, and the presumption that the founders intended the US to be explicitly Christian; RFK Jr.’s war on scientists; how Trump is mentally unwell; and how a Republican senator thinks solar power doesn’t work when the sun goes down.
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A post from Facebook. I don’t know the poster, but I like his point.

“…categories are useful models, not moral absolutes, and unusual cases are often where understanding becomes deeper rather than less valid.”

Continue reading →

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Dan Barker, CONTRADUCTION

Posted on Wednesday 13 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

(UK: Hypathia Press, 2024, 111pp, including References but no index)

Dan Barker (Wikipedia) is an atheist writer who was once an evangelical Christian pastor. I read one of his earlier books, LIFE DRIVEN PURPOSE (review here), which challenged Rick Warren’s idea that the purpose of life is to serve God, and entertained more productive ideas of ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’.

This book is shorter, and is about providing a word for a concept most people haven’t considered. It relates to my recurring theme that humans tend to project the protocols of their own lives, given relationships among themselves and the need to reproduce and survive, onto the universe at large, to the point where they simply can’t imagine that any other order could possibly exist. Even as issues in science and philosophy suggest that other orders do exist. Continue reading →

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New Ideas in the World

Posted on Tuesday 12 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Has a new circulation system been found in the human body that might explain why acupuncture seems to work?
  • Has a new framework been found that explains how the laws of nature varied at the start of the universe before settling into what they are today?
  • Short items: another Republican claims there’s no racism on the right; Robert Reich on the rebirth of the Jim Crow South; Andrew Egger and Heather Cox Richardson on the flop of Trump’s right-wing cell phone.
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Here’s a long, interactive (in an irritating way) piece destined for next weekend’s NYT Magazine, apparently.

NY Times, Avraham Z. Cooper, 11 May 2026: The Human Body’s Hidden Pathways

You have to scroll down to see the images change and bits of text. Let’s see if I can copy/quote some of it. Nope, it won’t let me.

The gist: It’s about the apparent discovery of a “third bodily system for the circulation of fluids” beyond the lymphatic and the cardiovascular. An interstitium. Which the Chinese claim to have been talking about for 4000 years. And which might explain why so many (Chinese) think that acupuncture works.

Continue reading →

Posted in Physics, Racism, Science | Comments Off on New Ideas in the World

Recalling American Life Before Vaccines, Including My Own

Posted on Monday 11 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A remembrance of America before vaccines;
  • How the DOGE-ing of the Humanities is being reversed, fortunately;
  • Briefly noted: Trump’s intuitive thinking is wrong about vaccines and autism; a Republican who thinks racial discrimination is a thing of the past, as Tennessee redistricts on racial grounds; how Trump demands loyalty above all; and Rebecca Solnit on what it takes to be California’s governor.
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People think the past was better than the present because they remember only the good parts. A recurring theme. Here’s an essay about the bad parts.

The Atlantic, Fran Moreland Johns, today: I Remember America Before the Measles Vaccine, subtitled “And I wish Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did too.”

Continue reading →

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Cooperation Is the Key to Human Advancement

Posted on Sunday 10 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • A counterpoint to zero-sum thinking from Japan, and cooperation;
  • Tennessee shows how to rig an election;
  • Short items on Trump, the Pope, and the Bible; now RFK Jr. is worried about jello; how a Christian conspiracy theorist now admits to lying; how a Texas legislator thinks his job is to do what (he thinks) God wants; Trump fans’ golden calf; and a social media meme about “when it finally happens.”
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Cooperation, not competition, is the key to the advancement of the human race. Competition is the law of the jungle.

Big Think, Eric Markowitz, 7 May 2026: How helping your rivals makes you harder to beat, subtitled “A counterpoint to zero-sum thinking from Japan.”

Continue reading →

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UFOs, Consciousness, Being Savvy

Posted on Saturday 9 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Adam Frank on the new UFO data;
  • Thoughts about being savvy, and reality-literacy, and the lack of evidence for both UFOs and God;
  • Carlo Rovelli denies there is a “hard problem” of consciousness.
– – –

One more about the new UFO data, since it’s by Adam Frank.

The Atlantic, Adam Frank, today: Just Show Us the Spaceships Already, subtitled “Until the U.S. government has data or samples of alien material that can be shared, the story of extraterrestrial visitors is just a story.”

Spaceships. That’s all I’m asking for. Just one actual stinking spaceship. I’d also take an actual alien body—I’ve been told that the government has some of them as well. Instead, the first “alien files,” released yesterday, appear to be the same old, same old: stories, but no hard evidence—certainly not of the kind I’d want to see as a scientist, or that could truly advance the debate about UFOs and their alien connection.

Continue reading →

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AI, UFOs, Tradwives

Posted on Friday 8 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Two pieces on Richard Dawkins, AI, and Clarke’s first law;
  • Items on the new UFO files being released by the government;
  • Two items about tradwives;
  • Items debunking the so-called religious revival, Trump claiming hantavirus is “very much under control,” and mind control.
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There’s been some kerfuffle in recent days about the reaction of the famous scientist and writer Richard Dawkins to his interaction with the AI bot Claude, or Claudia. For example:

The Guardian, Robert Booth, Tue 5 May 2026: Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn’t know it, subtitled “Chats with AI bots have convinced evolutionary biologist but most experts say he is being misled by mimicry”

I see this as an example of Arthur C. Clarke’s first law. As at Wikipedia, Clarke’s three laws.
Continue reading →

Posted in Lunacy, Psychology | Comments Off on AI, UFOs, Tradwives

Sean Carroll on Science and Religion, and Templeton

Posted on Thursday 7 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Sean Carroll on science and religion, and why he doesn’t take money from the Templeton Foundation;
  • Short items on how the Trump administration cutting funding to study the hantavirus, the one now loose on that cruise ship; more blaming Satan and demons; explaining the missing scientists case, how rights come from the government not God, and how Tennessee erased the state’s only Democrat-held seat;
  • Ennio Morricone’s State of Grace.
– – –

Here’s an old piece from 2013, that was linked to a recent piece that I saw yesterday, by Sean Carroll, author of one of my favorite books, THE BIG PICTURE, which I wrote up here almost 10 years ago.

It’s been noted that, especially in the past 50 years, religion has tried to borrow the imprimatur of science. Religion generally ignores or defies the conclusions of science, yet culture has changed sufficiently enough that religious ideas gain more traction if they’re dressed up in pseudo-scientific terms. Thus Creationism became Intelligent Design.

The Templeton Foundation is a religious organization that seeks the endorsements, mostly implicit, of scientists around the world by awarding them big cash prizes for suitable books or articles they can claim are sympathetic to religion. If you squint hard enough. Some scientists and other writers are happy to take their money, perhaps with a wink. Some aren’t.

Slate, Sean Carroll, 9 May 2013: Science and Religion Can’t Be Reconciled, subtitled “Why I won’t take money from the Templeton Foundation.” Continue reading →

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Rutger Bregman: MORAL AMBITION

Posted on Thursday 7 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference
(2024 in Dutch; Little, Brown, 2025, 285pp, including 53pp of Thanks, Notes, and Index)

Here’s the third book by Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian and thinker. First was UTOPIA FOR REALISTS (2017 in English, review here), which promoted the idea of a universal income, explained why the GDP is outdated, why we need to get over the dogma that you have to work for a living, and the benefits of open borders, and remembering that the Overton Window can shift – ideas that would horrify most conservatives of course, but which Bregman backed up with evidence and examples, echoing Harari and Rosling and others. Second was HUMANKIND (2020 in English, review here), whose thesis was that most people are pretty decent (despite what many conservatives are taught), coming down on the opposite side of the Hobbes/Rousseau as many other thinkers, as he reviewed incidents from history and even the novel LORD OF THE FLIES and concluded that most people have been peaceful, while famous incidents of savagery are rare or have been exaggerated.

The latest book is a call for ambition, for building a better world, and aligns roughly with ideas of some of the effective altruism (EA) crowd: think long-term, do good, don’t cruise through life. Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Human Progress, longtermism, Morality | Comments Off on Rutger Bregman: MORAL AMBITION