Category Archives: Evolution

Links and Comments: Evolution of Evolution Denial, and American Gullibility

Posted on Tuesday 21 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

A ‘Retro Report’ article in the NY Times, Questioning Evolution: The Push to Change Science Class, summarizes the by-now familiar litany of how objections to Darwin’s theory of the evolution — along with the many lines of supporting evidence and … Continue reading →

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Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow: Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on Wednesday 13 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is perhaps the most influential book of the past couple decades on the whole subject of human mental biases, how the ways in which we think entail errors of perception, and employ heuristics that are often but not always … Continue reading →

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Wright: Nonzero: Intro and Chapter 1

Posted on Thursday 7 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve decided to tackle three or four substantial nonfiction books, over the next few weeks, in the manner of reading books for college courses — that is, alternating among them over a quarter or semester-like period of 8 to 10 … Continue reading →

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Pinker: Better Angels: Passages and Outline from the Preface

Posted on Wednesday 6 September 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

This is Steven Pinker’s big 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, that takes a long-range view of human history to show that the human condition, over millennia and especially in recent centuries and decades, … Continue reading →

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Dan Savage on “Sex Dread” Education

Posted on Sunday 6 August 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: “Sex dread” education could be on the rise under Trump. Dan Savage is ready to fight it.. Subtitle: Dan Savage on why abstinence-focused education doesn’t work. Of course. Because conservatives just *know* things to be so, despite evidence. Excerpt: … Continue reading →

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George Lakoff on the Conservative Moral Hierarchy

Posted on Friday 14 July 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Retired UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff answers Two Questions About Trump and Republicans that Stump Progressives, a piece that has gotten some circulation the past couple weeks. The questions are: 1) Why don’t Trump supporters turn against Trump even though … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Reality and Fantasy about Abortion

Posted on Monday 22 May 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I don’t have any horse in the race about abortion, per se, except how it is an example of right-wing authoritarian, anti-science thinking. (I’ve seen but need to document the historical background about how abortion wasn’t on the conservative religious … Continue reading →

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Big History

Posted on Friday 3 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve just recently become aware of the concept, and term, “Big History”. It happened when I saw a coffee table book, shown here, at Barnes & Noble a couple weeks ago, and glanced through it, noticing two names I recognized: … Continue reading →

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Anthropocene and Harari

Posted on Thursday 23 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, Is the ‘Anthropocene’ Epoch a Condemnation of Human Interference — or a Call for More?, by Wesley Yang. Noticed firstly as continued evidence of the currency of the term ‘anthropocene’ to refer to … Continue reading →

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Rereading LORD OF THE FLIES

Posted on Friday 17 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Even before the reaction to Tr*mp’s election brought renewed attention to the famous dystopian classics like Nineteen Eight-Four [that’s the proper, bibliographic, title; ‘1984’ is a sort of nickname] and Brave New World, I had contemplated returning to some of … Continue reading →

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