Category Archives: Science

Nonfiction Notes: Alex Rosenberg’s THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE TO REALITY

Posted on Friday 12 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Delusions (2001, Norton) Here’s another book I’ve had since it was published but only got around to reading this past year. This is a book about taking reality at face … Continue reading →

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Nonfiction Notes: Michael Shermer: WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WEIRD THINGS

Posted on Saturday 6 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Michael Shermer: Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. (W.H. Freeman, 1997) Here’s one of the earliest books that address human irrationality in terms of both the evidence against various pseudoscientific beliefs, and the … Continue reading →

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Nonfiction Notes: Neil F. Comins, HEAVENLY ERRORS: Misconceptions about the real nature of the universe (2001)

Posted on Thursday 4 February 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a book I’ve had for nearly 20 years, since its publication in 2001, and finally I sat down last year, 2020, and read it. I had thought it would be a book about common misconceptions of the universe … Continue reading →

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Notes and Quotes: Frank Wilczek’s FUNDAMENTALS: TEN KEYS TO REALITY

Posted on Saturday 30 January 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, whose earlier book A BEAUTIFUL QUESTION: Finding Nature’s Deep Design (2015) I have but have not yet read. (It looks fascinating – the kind big picture book, that tries to understand history or … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Liars, Fear, Motivated Reasoning, Science Denial, Conservatives

Posted on Tuesday 26 January 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate’s William Saletan on Republicans vs. liars; NPR on vaccine resistance; Salon on reactions of QAnon to Biden’s inaurguration; a long NYT piece about what goes on inside QAnon chatrooms; how science denial is a form of conspiracy theory; why … Continue reading →

Posted in Lunacy, Politics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Liars, Fear, Motivated Reasoning, Science Denial, Conservatives

Link and Comments: Dawkins, via Coyne, on Science and Truth

Posted on Saturday 19 December 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Today Jerry Coyne’s site (even though it’s a blog, with chronological posts every day, sometimes several a day, he’s obstinate about not calling it a blog, but a site) links an article by Richard Dawkins at the UK magazine The … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Trying to Be Smarter; Faith vs Fact

Posted on Wednesday 16 December 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT: How Do We Get to Herd Immunity for Fake News?, subtitled, “We need to match our focus on the supply of misinformation with a focus on the demand for it.” Yet the chorus of angst over misinformation has focused … Continue reading →

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Links, Comments, and Memoirs: Republicans from Reagan Forward

Posted on Tuesday 15 December 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Paul Krugman’s NYT column today is When Did Republicans Start Hating Facts?, subtitled “A straight line runs from Reagan to the Trump dead-enders.” I’ll quote from this and comment, and then discuss my own attendance at a Reagan rally way … Continue reading →

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Carl Sagan: Cosmos (1980)

Posted on Friday 11 December 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

Cosmos may fairly be called one of the foundational books of my life (even moreso than Sagan’s earlier The Cosmic Connection, revisited here in 2015) even though I hadn’t read the entire book until this year. The book was a … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Science, Reality Bubbles, and Stories

Posted on Tuesday 24 November 2020 by Mark R. Kelly

The most interesting one is at the bottom. \\ Scientific American: To Understand How Science Denial Works, Look to History, subtitled, “The same tactics used to cast doubt on the dangers of smoking and climate change are now being used … Continue reading →

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