Ls&Cs: Training, Education, Belief

Posted on 17 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Two items today. The first is a post by Jerry Coyne about an article from Inside Higher Ed about the difference between training and education. Here’s his post: Training versus education.

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Ls&Cs and Thoughts: Thinking and Science

Posted on 16 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Following up from yesterday, some more thoughts and links about the notion of thinking, and how that’s what science is all about, while so many people seem to have no understanding of what thinking, let alone science, actually is.

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Thoughts for the Day: About Thinking and Evidence

Posted on 15 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

I am still formulating a thesis (or, provisional conclusion) that many, perhaps most, people don’t “think” in the way rationalists and scientists think that everyone does. Some people have never encountered the idea that the evidence of the real world means something, that conclusions can be drawn from that evidence, that such conclusions are repeatable. In contrast, many people live in a world where whatever they prefer to be real, is real. “Pretty to think so.” Or whatever those around them think is real, is accepted to be real and true, without further consideration.

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Ls&Cs: Elections and Mandates, Rights and Responsibilities

Posted on 14 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Status today 14 Sep 2021: Today is election day for a bid to recall California governor Gavin Newsome. Meanwhile, President Biden is trying to implement vaccine mandates, to howls of Republican objections.

(As usual I’m behind posting links and comments, and still have a backlog. I’m thinking about trying to post shorter posts every day. Hmm…)

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Facebook Memes 8Sep21

Posted on 8 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

I will start compiling memes I see on Facebook, mostly without comment. These of course are anecdotes; they’re the equivalent of “people are saying” comments from a certain former president, though unlike him, I have Facebook share counts to indicate that some people, at least (usually thousands), are in fact sharing these thoughts.
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Ls&Cs: Vaccine Regrets and Horse Paste

Posted on 3 September 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Have a backlog of links, of course, with new ones now that Christians in Texas are coming closer to matching the achievement of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But for now, a trend of the past couple weeks: right-wing vaccine deniers who are dying of covid, sometimes with regrets, sometimes with denial to the bitter end.

I suspect no stories like these are appearing on Fox News or its imitators.

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L&C: About Hospital Workers Who Are Opposed to the Covid Vaccines

Posted on 27 August 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

This headline was striking recently.

NYT: A Hospital Finds an Unlikely Group Opposing Vaccination: Its Workers, subtitled, “When a Staten Island hospital implemented a vaccine or testing mandate, some of its staff staged angry protests.”

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Ls&Cs: Morality, Left and Right

Posted on 23 August 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Two items recently that dovetail nicely.

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Ls&Cs This Past Month

Posted on 16 August 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Too many to comment about in much detail.

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ICU Delusions

Posted on 14 August 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

When I was in the hospital for several weeks following my second heart attack, in April and May 2021, I retained no memories of the first week because I was on sedation while the doctors figured out what to do with me. I remember on April 20th after Y called 911 the paramedics taking me down the stairs in my house, in a compact wheelchair, to the ambulance at the curb. On April 28th I was transferred to a different hospital, one that could perform heart transplants. My memories of my hospital stays begin with that transfer, but these memories are more accurately delusions, or enhanced dreams, inspired by what was going on in the outer world but amplified in bizarre ways.
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