Monthly Archives: February 2021

Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Delusions (2001, Norton) Here’s another book I’ve had since it was published but only got around to reading this past year. This is a book about taking reality at face … Continue reading

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Links and Comments: Political Matters This Week: 11 Feb 2021

This is the week Trump is being impeached for inciting a riot and invasion of the Capitol, and Republicans, supposedly the party of personal responsibility, are going to let him get away with it. Nothing to see here, they say. … Continue reading

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Nonfiction Notes: Bobby Duffy, WHY WE’RE WRONG ABOUT NEARLY EVERYTHING

Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018) (US edition Nov 2019) Here’s another book on a seemingly familiar theme: why people so frequently misunderstand the world, and what we can do to correct … Continue reading

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Nonfiction Notes: Michael Shermer: WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS

Michael Shermer: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. (W.H. Freeman, 1997) Here’s one of the earliest books that address human irrationality in terms of both the evidence against various pseudoscientific beliefs, and the … Continue reading

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Nonfiction Notes: Neil F. Comins, HEAVENLY ERRORS: Misconceptions about the real nature of the universe (2001)

This is a book I’ve had for nearly 20 years, since its publication in 2001, and finally I sat down last year, 2020, and read it. I had thought it would be a book about common misconceptions of the universe … Continue reading

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Links and Comments: Changing Minds; GOP Economics; Liars; Taxonomy of Trump Supporters

Items from NYT (Adam Grant); NYT (David Leonhardt); Slate (William Saletan); The Week, NYT, and Salon about Trump and the GOP; and NYT (Michelle Goldberg).

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