Category Archives: Science

Links and Comments: Radiohead; Originalism; Principia; Trump brain rot; Homeschooling; Art v Religion

Posted on Tuesday 7 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Catching up on links saved over the past week or so. Vox: Radiohead and sadness: a data analysis. Fascinating. \\\ Vox: Judicial originalism as myth It’s always struck me that Judicial originalism — the idea that nothing can be inferred … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Radiohead; Originalism; Principia; Trump brain rot; Homeschooling; Art v Religion

More on the Enlightenment and Its Critics

Posted on Saturday 4 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

An essay by Damon Linker at The Week. (I’ve seen Linker’s work on various website for years; he’s an interesting commentator, though one perhaps without any consistent philosophy; he seems to enjoy playing the contrarian role.) The Enlightenment’s legacy is … Continue reading →

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Two Big Science Stories

Posted on Thursday 23 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Two big science stories this week. Highlighted in New York Times weekly Science section on Tuesday, this piece by Dennis Overbye: Cosmos Controversy: The Universe Is Expanding, but How Fast?. It’s about some discrepancies in data that should align and … Continue reading →

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Science v Religion: New v Old

Posted on Tuesday 21 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s another way in which religion and science are unalike. (Aside from one being a deference to the supposed wisdom of the ancients and to primitive myths about the nature of the universe and the centrality of humanity within it; … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: science visions; the retrograde government; multiverse; faith; Wars v Trek; California as the future; Haidt on tribalism and the national rift

Posted on Wednesday 8 February 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

For today here are several links I’ve ‘saved’ on Facebook in recent weeks, with comments. First, Plate Tectonics Movement During the Last 540 Million Years, a cool video animation, from a Facebook group called Geology Wonders, that shows the continents … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality

Posted on Wednesday 22 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Today in NYT, Thomas L. Friedman: Another Age of Discovery. Friedman lets Ian Goldin, co-author of a book about the lessons we can draw from the period of 1450 to 1550, i.e. a period of extraordinary change. Then: Gutenberg undermined … Continue reading →

Posted in Atheism, Culture, Mathematics, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Friedman on historical change, why evangelicals like Trump, Paulos on math and biography, Gawande on science, the case against reality

Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Posted on Tuesday 7 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a book I had forgotten I had, relatively speaking; I obviously bought it back in 2006 or so, but I didn’t read it right away and so it sat on my shelves among many other books (by Sagan and … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Human Progress, Provisional Conclusions, Religion, Science | Comments Off on Carl Sagan, THE VARIETIES OF SCIENTIFIC EXPERIENCE (2006): History is a battle of inadequate myths

Sean Carroll Interview

Posted on Sunday 8 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Phil Torres talks to Sean Carroll, author of a book coming out Tuesday that I’m greatly looking forward to, The Big Picture Salon: “The evidence is pretty incontrovertible that he doesn’t exist”: Stephen Colbert’s favorite scientist on the universe, naturalism … Continue reading →

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Paul Kalanithi, WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

Posted on Wednesday 6 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

This is an almost unbearably sad, yet poignant and moving and thoughtful, memoir by a young Stanford neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at the age of 36. His life changes from being the physician to being … Continue reading →

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Carlo Rovelli, SEVEN BRIEF LESSONS ON PHYSICS

Posted on Wednesday 6 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Very slender book, drawn from a newspaper column and intended for readers who know nothing about science. I read it because it’s short and because a NYT review of the book, pointed out that its final chapter is about human … Continue reading →

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