Category Archives: Culture

Link and Comments: science visions; the retrograde government; multiverse; faith; Wars v Trek; California as the future; Haidt on tribalism and the national rift

Posted on Wednesday 8 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

For today here are several links I’ve ‘saved’ on Facebook in recent weeks, with comments. First, Plate Tectonics Movement During the Last 540 Million Years, a cool video animation, from a Facebook group called Geology Wonders, that shows the continents … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Psychology, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Link and Comments: science visions; the retrograde government; multiverse; faith; Wars v Trek; California as the future; Haidt on tribalism and the national rift

Thought Leaders

Posted on Saturday 28 January 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple days ago I was dipping into Peter Singer’s latest book, Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter, and saw him mention something about his being a “thought leader” according to some German outfit … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Links, Philosophy, Thinking | Comments Off on Thought Leaders

Links and Comments: Academia, Creationists, Christians and Trump, Plait on the GOP, Evil, Victims

Posted on Tuesday 5 July 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

From Slate, more on the theme of Why Are There So Few Conservatives in Academia? There are three big reasons that conservatives are hard to find in university faculties: intellectual consistency, anti-science trends by conservatives, and social pressure. On the … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Morality, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Academia, Creationists, Christians and Trump, Plait on the GOP, Evil, Victims

Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality

Posted on Wednesday 22 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Today in NYT, Thomas L. Friedman: Another Age of Discovery. Friedman lets Ian Goldin, co-author of a book about the lessons we can draw from the period of 1450 to 1550, i.e. a period of extraordinary change. Then: Gutenberg undermined … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Culture, Mathematics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality

The Orlando Shooter and the Evil of Religious Fundamentalism

Posted on Wednesday 15 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

To put this as concisely as possibly, my take on the Orlando mass-shooting is that it is rooted ultimately in the animus to sexual minorities — a portion of humanity that for whatever reason has *always existed* [see footnote] — … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Religion | Comments Off on The Orlando Shooter and the Evil of Religious Fundamentalism

Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Posted on Tuesday 7 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I had forgotten I had, relatively speaking; I obviously bought it back in 2006 or so, but I didn’t read it right away and so it sat on my shelves among many other books (by Sagan and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Reading In and Around the Bible: Genesis, part 1

Posted on Thursday 2 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

I finished up the New Testament a couple weeks ago, and have notes and comments on those latter epistles, and Revelation. I then circled back to the beginning, to read Genesis itself, rather than merely comments about it, and since … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Genesis, part 1

Links and Comments: The Literary Canon and the Bible; Americans Compared to the Rest of the World; Rush

Posted on Wednesday 1 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate, last week: The Canon Is Sexist, Racist, Colonialist, and Totally Gross. Yes, You Have to Read It Anyway, by Katy Waldman. Specifically discussing the curriculum at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut. This addresses the efforts for some decades now … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: The Literary Canon and the Bible; Americans Compared to the Rest of the World; Rush

Links and Comments: Luck; Facebook and social bubbles; being openly secular

Posted on Thursday 26 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

One author with a new book currently making the circuit of talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages is Robert H. Frank, whose book is Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, and who turned up on KQED’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Luck; Facebook and social bubbles; being openly secular

Links and Comments: Innovation, Optimism, Conspiracy Theories, and Liberals

Posted on Thursday 26 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Four items from the New York Times, Sunday before last. Neil Irwin: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour. What strikes me about this is not so much which era was greatest, as how much things … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Human Progress, Politics | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Innovation, Optimism, Conspiracy Theories, and Liberals