Category Archives: Evolution

Can Education Account for Evolutionary Change?

Posted on Wednesday 8 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Steven Pinker on education, and how it might prioritize overcoming base intuitions that don’t apply in the modern world; The naturalistic fallacy and DeSantis’ and Fetterman’s objections to lab-grown meat. This month I’m working my way through the last ‘big’ … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Education, Evolution, Psychology | Comments Off on Can Education Account for Evolutionary Change?

Violence, Evolution, Climate Change, and Cory Doctorow’s THE LOST CAUSE

Posted on Monday 22 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How Republicans increasingly advocate violence; How Tucker Carlson doesn’t understand evolution, and his several dumb objections to evolution; How 10 straight months of record-breaking temperatures won’t persuade the skeptics; And a passage from Cory Doctorow’s 2023 novel The Lost Cause … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Evolution, science fiction | Comments Off on Violence, Evolution, Climate Change, and Cory Doctorow’s THE LOST CAUSE

Third Essay of the Weekend

Posted on Sunday 21 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

An Elizabeth Kolbert essay about the debate about the term “Anthropocene”; And Neil Finn’s beautiful lullaby “Faster than Light”. * This is Elizabeth Kolbert (author of The Sixth Extinction, one of the best nonfiction books of the 21st century; review … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolution, Music, Science | Comments Off on Third Essay of the Weekend

Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 3

Posted on Sunday 25 February 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Chapter 7, “Family Values,” about the psychology of social relations, is the longest chapter in the book, and second-to-last. The author begins by recalling that period in the 1960s when activists and folk singers called for peace and understanding, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, MInd, Psychology, Steven Pinker | Comments Off on Steven Pinker, HOW THE MIND WORKS, post 3

Small-town America and Democracy; Competitive Exclusion; and How that Flat Earth Debate Worked Out

Posted on Saturday 9 December 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

How small-town America hasn’t been good for democracy; How conflicts like Palestine/Israel might be resolved through evolutionary concept of “competitive exclusion”; Quick takes about that flat Earth debate based on scripture; how different Christians claim diametrically opposite things; and Slate’s … Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Evolution, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Small-town America and Democracy; Competitive Exclusion; and How that Flat Earth Debate Worked Out

Bathing, Evidence, Control, Dating, Social Security

Posted on Wednesday 29 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

Why daily bathing (just like trying to kill every germ in sight) may not be healthy; Items about Republican admissions they don’t have evidence for their claims; how they take credit for what they voted against; how the party of … Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Culture, Evolution, Politics | Comments Off on Bathing, Evidence, Control, Dating, Social Security

Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3

Posted on Monday 20 November 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

This is my third post, following this one in March and this one in June, in which I consider the John Brockman book The Last Unknowns, in which he gathers deep unanswered questions about “the universe, the mind, the future … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Last Questions and Possible Answers, 3

Misapprehensions of Reality

Posted on Wednesday 25 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 | Comments Off on Misapprehensions of Reality

Science and Art and Predictions and Immortality

Posted on Monday 23 October 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

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 →

Posted in Cosmology, Evolution, Science | Comments Off on Science and Art and Predictions and Immortality

Sagan & Druyan: Propensities and Predispositions

Posted on Friday 4 August 2023 by Mark R. Kelly

A couple hours ago I finished that Carl Sagan/Ann Druyan book I mentioned a couple days ago, and it’s remarkable how its conclusions resemble my own recent observations about how certain forms of human morality align to conservative politics, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Conservative Resistance, Evolution, Human Progress, Quote at Length, Science | Comments Off on Sagan & Druyan: Propensities and Predispositions