Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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Meta
Category Archives: Thinking
No One Can Be An Expert on Everything
This post by Andrew Sullivan, about GOP denialism of climate change, raises fundamental epistemological questions about how we know *anything*. I’m not a scientist either. I have no expertise in measuring carbon levels back thousands of years; I have no … Continue reading
What Would Make Someone Change Their Mind
Fascinating essay in The New Yorker by Maria Konnikova, I Don’t Want to Be Right, which addresses the various results that show you just can’t change people’s minds with evidence. Could various pro-vaccination campaigns change parental attitudes toward vaccines? They … Continue reading
Thoughts About the Legal Profession
Aside from the occasional TV series about lawyers (I followed L.A. Law while it ran, and recently we’ve been watching DVDs of old Perry Mason episodes), I’ve never had much interest in the legal profession, intellectually, and find it hard … Continue reading
Tonight’s favorite song: John Grant, Where Dreams Go to Die
Wikipedia has this post about the album. There’s a lyric here — “I know you know I know you know that I know that you know…” * — that illustrates the idea that human minds are able to speculate on … Continue reading
Kalam Cosmological Argument
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the traditional, philosophical, arguments for the existence of God. The idea is that everything must have a beginning; therefore the universe must have a beginning, therefore God. (Which those who use this argument … Continue reading
Posted in Atheism, Cosmology, Psychology, Science, Thinking
Comments Off on Kalam Cosmological Argument
Mind/Brain and Mathematical Intelligence
Several interesting links today to articles I’ve not yet had a chance to read, but I’ll defer those to note this review in Entertainment Weekly of a book called Struck by Genius by Jason Padgett (and Maureen Seaberg… probably the … Continue reading
Sophisticated Theology, Proofs of God, Humanism, Religious Persecution, Morality
I got the book! You know, the one with the best arguments for God Jerry Coyne lists books to read before criticizing atheism (just as theists keep issuing books about the ‘best’ arguments for god which they insists atheists must … Continue reading
God and Morality
The US is an outlier among nations whose peoples believe that belief in God is essential to morality. http://www.alternet.org/belief/no-you-dont-need-god-be-good-person The trend across the world is mirrored within the US: Not coincidentally, led again by Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, nine of … Continue reading
Truth-Claims?
Jerry Coyne links to Sam Harris’ characterization of Christianity, in a long exchange with Nature science writer Philip Ball. There are more polite versions of this, but for anyone who did not grow up with this narrative and is an … Continue reading
A Fellow Heir of Carl Sagan
Via Friendly Atheist, this post of a Tale of a lapsed Christian who grew up in a household that mocked Carl Sagan when the first Cosmos series was aired. In my childhood home, Carl Sagan was a fundamentalist caricature of … Continue reading