Monthly Archives: September 2015

Lying with Phony Graphs

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

If the anti-abortion anti-Planned Parenthood folks had a case, you’d think they wouldn’t need to lie with transparently inept graphs that misrepresent the actual data. Scroll down on this link to see an actual chart, legitimately scaled, showing the services … Continue reading →

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Lawrence M. Krauss on Ben Carson

Posted on Wednesday 30 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

He says it better than I can (and of course with more authority). Ben Carson’s Scientific Ignorance It is hard to find a single detailed claim in his diatribe that is physically sensible or that reflects accurate knowledge about science. … Continue reading →

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The Atlantic on trigger warnings; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the war on reason

Posted on Tuesday 29 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I mentioned a while back the cover story on The Atlantic magazine’s September issue, The Coddling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. (Haidt is the author of the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are … Continue reading →

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Politics: Religion vs. Rationality

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Jeffrey Tayler’s latest weekly essay at Salon, this past Sunday, can be keyed to my earlier posts about Ben Carson. Make them shut up about God: The right-wing’s religious delusions are killing us — and them. It focuses on the … Continue reading →

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Evolution and the Teenaged Brain

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

From The New Yorker, August 31st, a review/essay by Elizabeth Kolbert on two books about the teenaged brain, The Terrible Teens. Many interesting points. Every adult has gone through adolescence, and studies have shown that if you ask people to … Continue reading →

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Oliver Sacks on SF

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

There are many reasons why I might have mentioned Oliver Sacks here before, which somehow escaped me, but here’s one from a couple weeks ago. From The New Yorker, Sept 14th, a piece by Atul Gawande remembering the late Oliver … Continue reading →

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David Brooks: American Exceptionalism vs. Conservatism

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

David Brooks’ column in Friday’s (Sept. 25th) New York Times for once said something that completely resonates with me, without his usual waffling and obeisance to parochial religious sentiment: The American Idea and Today’s G.O.P.. He takes the idea of … Continue reading →

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Salman Rushdie, Two Quotes

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday’s (print) New York Times Book Review, the Inside the List commentary, discussing Salman Rushdie’s new novel. (Paul Di Filippo’s review, posted last Friday, was seen by Rushdie himself, who tweeted it to his 1M+ followers — you can see … Continue reading →

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Ben Carson follow-up

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I wrapped up my previous post about Ben Carson a bit too hastily, because I do have a fairly solid provisional conclusion about why some people don’t “believe” in science and ascribe instead to faith or various subjectively attractive supernatural … Continue reading →

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About Ben Carson

Posted on Thursday 24 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Ben Carson is the Republican presidential candidate, a non-politician (like Trump and Fiorina), who has a calm demeanor and is reportedly a brilliant neurosurgeon. And is also a creationist, who dismisses evolution and the Big Bang as “fairy tales”. How … Continue reading →

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