Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Monthly Archives: December 2015
On Seeing The Nutcracker ballet
As I mentioned on Facebook yesterday, we saw a production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ballet at the San Francisco Ballet (click link for a 1-minute video sample), on Saturday 12/19, and had the good luck to snag first row seats, with … Continue reading
Posted in Music, Personal history
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Elizabeth Kolbert on Climate Change and Florida
Fine essay by Elizabeth Kolbert — whose 2014 book The Sixth Extinction I greatly admired — in the current New Yorker, The Siege of Miami, about how rising sea levels are already affecting that city. This dovetails with my previous … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Science
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Chris Mooney’s THE REPUBLICAN BRAIN
As I alluded in my previous post, I’ve been reading Chris Mooney’s 2012 book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science — and Reality, which explores how psychology can inform the obvious fact that different people react … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Politics
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Links and Comments from Sunday’s New York Times
I’m finishing up a book by Chris Mooney that explores motivated reasoning and how we are all subject to seeking out evidence that confirms our pre-existing views, and disputing evidence that challenges those views. And that nevertheless claims that conservatives/Republicans … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, Social Progress, Thinking
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Spotlight
We saw Spotlight on Sunday, a film about the 2001 Boston Globe investigation into child abuse within the Catholic Church in that city, a film that just ranked #1 on the best movies of the year lists in both Time … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
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Harper’s on Environmentalism, etc.
More from the November Harper’s. Fascinating article by James K. Boyce, Rethinking Extinction, subtitled “Toward a less gloomy environmentalism”. This is best-read in the context of understanding the impact of humanity on the planet, not just in recent decades, but … Continue reading
John Crowley on Narrative
From the November issue of Harper’s magazine, a lovely essay on narrative by [the acclaimed sf/fantasy author] John Crowley: A Ring-Formed World. It begins (my bold): I have recently developed a crank theory, for which I can adduce no real … Continue reading
Posted in Narrative
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Links and Comments from last Sunday’s New York Times
First, a Sunday Review front page essay by Maria Konnikova, Born to Be Conned. It’s about how people are “suckers for belief”, about confidence games, with insights into human nature, e.g. Monte operators, like all good con men, are exceptional … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Psychology
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Jonathan Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, 3
First, an aside that I didn’t mention earlier, in the chapter about how people are more concerned about reputation than actually being virtuous. In the discussion about how you can use ‘reason’ to reach any conclusion (based on whatever you … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Morality, Politics, Religion
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More notes and comments about Haidt’s THE RIGHTEOUS MIND
I like the way Haidt outlines his thesis in the introduction, provides central metaphors for each of the three main sections, and provides a 1-2 page summary at the end of each of the 12 chapters. (Academic books do this … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Morality, Politics, Religion
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