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: October 2023
Beliefs and Reality
On this Halloween there are Christian forces out there warning against demons, since they apparently believe demons are real. For their definitions of “believe” and “real.” Which are not the same definitions that reality-based people use. My understanding of this … Continue reading
The Corporate Enemy of Truth
Just finished Jonathan Rauch’s 2021 book The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, which argues that the government and science have evolved analogous mechanisms to steadily close in on objective truth, with self-correcting mechanisms, and that modern political forces … Continue reading
Posted in Psychology, Science
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My Essay Accepted for Publication
The news this late October is that I’ve had an 11,000 word essay, the one I’ve been working on since June, accepted by Gary Westfahl for publication in a volume of essays to be published in a year or so … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history, science fiction
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How “Meaning” is just another example of the Narrative Bias
Three pieces from Big Think. How history is told by story-tellers, and cannot be taken literally; How philosophy advances science by asking forbidden questions; How questions about the “meaning of life” reveal the narrative bias. —— Three sciency links, all … Continue reading
Posted in History, Meaning, Narrative, Philosophy, Science
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Disconnects from Reality
The economy is doing great and yet conservatives deny it; Heather Cox Richardson contrasts worldviews, one leading to our economy, the other to mass shootings; More about House Speaker Mike Johnson: hate for LGBTQ+ people; allegiance with “debunked faux-historian” David … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Epistemology, Politics, Religion
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The New Speaker of the House and Delusional Reality
Items about newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson from the NYT editorial board, Paul Krugman, and the LAT editorial board; Specific items about Johnson’s claims that fossil fuels don’t cause climate change, that the US is not a … Continue reading
Misapprehensions of Reality
The new House Speaker is an election denier who would criminalize homosexuality; How Christian conservatives are flatly wrong about homosexuality being “unnatural” or that “creed” is part of “what you are”; and the evolutionary reason why they resist homosexuality, cross-dressing, … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Politics, Psychology, Religion
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The Twilight Zone of Religion and Conservative Politics
Adam Lee counters Christian claims that “new atheism” has collapsed; it hasn’t Greta Christina patiently explains the vacuousness of “Pascal’s Wager” Religious presumption and “our religion” Republicans look to Jesus Republicans can break promises if God tells them to Short … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Psychology, Religion
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Science and Art and Predictions and Immortality
Carlo Rovelli on science and art; Big Think on failed predictions; Immortality as a philosophical paradox; Michio Kaku on the four types of planetary civilizations. —— NY Times, guest essay by Carlo Rovelli, 16 Oct 2023: The Secret to Unlocking … Continue reading
Dysfunctional American Politics and Speculation About Root Causes
Paul Krugman on the decline of Pax Americana; New Republic on why the Republicans are dysfunctional: they have no policy ideas or purpose; NYT’s Jamelle Bouie on how the Republican Party got Southernized; And a note about Jonathan Rauch’s The … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Politics
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