Category Archives: Evolution

Reading Haidt, arcs of history, false balance, how liberal views are closer to the truth, and science fiction

Posted on Thursday 12 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Beginning to read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion today, an eloquent, insightful exploration into how the parameters of human psychology explain the range of political and religious differences. I wrote a … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Raising Kids with or without faith; Benford hosts evolution debate; the Lake Wobegon Effect

Posted on Tuesday 10 November 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate: “Why Hold a Child Hostage to My Doubts?” The confusing, complicated desire of parents with no religion to raise their kids with faith. Why would parents with no religion think their kids need to be raised into a faith … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments from Today’s New York Times: 25 Oct 2015

Posted on Sunday 25 October 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

You can’t escape human nature: Norway Has a New Passion: Ghost Hunting. As traditional religion has faded in many northern European nations, it’s being replaced in Norway by an increased tendency to perceive ghosts at every corner. Ghosts, or at … Continue reading →

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Evolution and the Teenaged Brain

Posted on Monday 28 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

From The New Yorker, August 31st, a review/essay by Elizabeth Kolbert on two books about the teenaged brain, The Terrible Teens. Many interesting points. Every adult has gone through adolescence, and studies have shown that if you ask people to … Continue reading →

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About Ben Carson

Posted on Thursday 24 September 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Ben Carson is the Republican presidential candidate, a non-politician (like Trump and Fiorina), who has a calm demeanor and is reportedly a brilliant neurosurgeon. And is also a creationist, who dismisses evolution and the Big Bang as “fairy tales”. How … Continue reading →

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Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction

Posted on Tuesday 30 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

This book won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction (and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). I finally got around to it on my plane flight back east a month ago. The title refers to five prominent … Continue reading →

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Revisiting Carl Sagan’s The Cosmic Connection

Posted on Friday 26 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

The Cosmic Connection, published in 1973, was the first popular book by Carl Sagan, after some academic tomes and an anthology of essays about UFOs, who later gained much fame as the author and host of the 1980 book and … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Lucky Numbers; Paleo diet; Narratives about Charleston; Pinker on violence, and the news media

Posted on Wednesday 24 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, keying off my earlier post today about the Alan Lightman book, here’s an essay by George Johnson in the New York Times about Humankind’s Existentially Lucky Numbers. Four fundamental forces rule reality, but why is the number not three … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Narrative | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Lucky Numbers; Paleo diet; Narratives about Charleston; Pinker on violence, and the news media

James Morrow: We’re not tourists on this planet, we’re citizens

Posted on Wednesday 24 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Many thoughts resonate with me in the James Morrow interview in the June issue of Locus, which I excerpted here. E.g., That’s the great gift of the 18th-century Enlightenment, that insistence on a conversation that must never stop, a conversation … Continue reading →

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The Human Impact on Earth; About Book Culling

Posted on Monday 22 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

A nice Slate photo gallery, a couple days ago, which is not unrelated to the issue of the Sixth Extinction: Gorgeous, Stunning Satellite Images of the Human Impact on Earth. I especially recommend watching the video linked at the end, … Continue reading →

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