Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

Conservative Epistemology

Posted on Monday 6 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The core belief that explains extremism on the right; Peter Wehner on how Republicans have chosen nihilism; My wondering what the deep explanation is for what’s happened on the right; Short items about GOP tax cheats, Trump’s latest outrageous lies, … Continue reading →

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More About Fake History

Posted on Sunday 5 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Let’s follow up on yesterday’s post here, with a couple more items on the same general topic. Mike Lofgren at Salon about the history of right-wing fake history; Texas Tribune about David Barton; And closing comments about theme parks and … Continue reading →

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The “Intellectual” Christian Nationalists

Posted on Saturday 4 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

(Finishing on Sunday a post I began yesterday, Saturday, and am posted in that slot.) Here’s a longish essay by Damon Linker about conservative “intellectuals” who are trying to justify the takeover of America by Christian Nationalism. On what grounds, … Continue reading →

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Media, Mystics, and Two Key Republican Obsessions

Posted on Friday 3 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Two curious items from Facebook, about learning new media, and scientists as “mystics”; Three items, one by Paul Krugman, about the Republicans’ naked obsession with benefiting the ultra-wealthy; Three items, or maybe four, about Republican obsession with other people’s sex … Continue reading →

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How Psychology Trumps Everything

Posted on Thursday 2 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

The hierarchy of sciences in which, in terms of human beliefs about the real world, psychology trumps everything; The New Yorker on the plausibility of impossible beings (from 2017); Recalling that Venn Diagram of Irrational Nonsense; How “more than half … Continue reading →

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More About Things People Believe That Aren’t True

Posted on Wednesday 1 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain Jonathan V. Last about how most voters are “disconnected from reality”; How Google’s Pixel phone could destroy … Continue reading →

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Beliefs and Reality

Posted on Tuesday 31 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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The Corporate Enemy of Truth

Posted on Monday 30 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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My Essay Accepted for Publication

Posted on Sunday 29 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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How “Meaning” is just another example of the Narrative Bias

Posted on Saturday 28 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

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