Category Archives: Psychology

Ariely: PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL

Posted on Tuesday 12 February 2019 by Mark R. Kelly

Dan Ariely’s PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Harper 2008) is one of the earliest popular books that summarizes various findings of experimental psychology in recent decades that reveal the biases of human nature. Key point: traditional … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Psychology | Comments Off on Ariely: PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL

Links and Comments: World Getting Better; Choosing What to Believe; Questions for Atheists; Mathematical Ideas; Trumpian Cruelty

Posted on Friday 19 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: 23 charts and maps that show the world is getting much, much better. From 2014, but updated this month. These data echo the theme of Steven Pinker’s recent books. File under: human progress, despite conservative paranoia and fears \\ … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Conservative Resistance, Human Progress, Mathematics, Psychology | Comments Off on Links and Comments: World Getting Better; Choosing What to Believe; Questions for Atheists; Mathematical Ideas; Trumpian Cruelty

Links and Comments: Unread Books; Psychology and Logic; GOP Paranoia; Political Extremes

Posted on Friday 19 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

From recent weeks’ NYT. Essay by Kevin Mims: All Those Books You’ve Bought but Haven’t Read? There’s a Word for That. The print title, October 14, was “The Importance of Unread Books” subtitled “Why a personal library should include books … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Unread Books; Psychology and Logic; GOP Paranoia; Political Extremes

Links and Comments: Psychology and Economics; SF and Fantasy

Posted on Monday 8 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Several items from Sunday’s NYT. First a review of a new book by Steven Johnson, FARSIGHTED: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most; the review is by Adam Grant: How Do We Make the Long-Term Decisions That Matter?. … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Psychology, science fiction | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Psychology and Economics; SF and Fantasy

Play and Stranger Danger

Posted on Thursday 6 September 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

From Sunday’s New York Times Book Review: Does Our Cultural Obsession With Safety Spell the Downfall of Democracy?, by Thomas Chatterton Williams, reviews two books, including THE CODDLING OF THE AMERICAN MIND: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal history, Psychology | Comments Off on Play and Stranger Danger

Links and Comments: Storytelling; Religious Fundamentalism and Fake News; the Attraction of Conspiracy Theories

Posted on Tuesday 15 May 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Time magazine, December 5, 2017, Jeffrey Kluger: How Telling Stories Makes Us Human [S]torytelling is a powerful means of fostering social cooperation and teaching social norms, and it pays valuable dividends to the storytellers themselves, improving their chances of being … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Storytelling; Religious Fundamentalism and Fake News; the Attraction of Conspiracy Theories

Arguing with a Flat Earther

Posted on Monday 30 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Vox: How to argue with flat-earthers, subtitled, “But not necessarily convince them.” People committed to the belief that the Earth is flat (or that the universe was created 6000 years ago) will have answers to all your challenges, all your … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Thinking | Comments Off on Arguing with a Flat Earther

Links from NYT recently, with Comments

Posted on Thursday 12 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Op-ed by Amy Sullivan in the New York Times, April 1 (posted March 31): Trump’s Christian Soldiers The recurring, amazing fact that the self-righteous evangelicals support someone like Trump. You could open a publishing press devoted to the theological and … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on Links from NYT recently, with Comments

Link and Comments: UFOs and Other Fairy Tales

Posted on Tuesday 26 December 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

No I don’t “believe” in UFOs, in the sense of believing them to be evidence of extraterrestrial visitors, because I’ve long been too familiar with the many ways human perception can go awry and of the many ways reports of … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Religion | Comments Off on Link and Comments: UFOs and Other Fairy Tales

Links and Comments: Regulations; Science on Sundays; How to Talk to Someone in a Conservative Bubble

Posted on Tuesday 26 December 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate: Trump’s quiet attack on the regulatory state is another part of his broader class war The conservatives’ simplistic rebellion against “regulations” will have consequences, and costs. Regulations are there for a reason. Yes, these rules and regulations might technically … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Psychology, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Regulations; Science on Sundays; How to Talk to Someone in a Conservative Bubble