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Author: James Kenneth Rogers

Cosmology, Religion, and Reason: Part 1

Cosmology, Religion, and Reason: Part 1

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This is part one of a series. Part two is here. Part three is here. Part four is here. Part five is here. Over the tens of thousands of years of human existence, human cultures have developed much knowledge about creating and maintaining good relationships and building communities. In the development of human society over the last 100,000 years, humans moved from simple hunter-gatherer tribes to societies of increasing complexity and size. The large and complex societies of the last…

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Morality and ethics – part 6: Family

Morality and ethics – part 6: Family

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Note: This is part 6 of a series on morality and ethics. Here are the other parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 7 (plus additional posts on hypocrisy and free will). The entire series makes up the fourth chapter of my book, The Triple Path, which can be downloaded for free here in PDF and eReader formats or purchased at all major book retailers (in print and eReader formats).   There are two…

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Links of the Day

Links of the Day

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1. Oppulent homes of the 99. Some of those OWS protesters seem to be pretty well off for people who claim to be protesting against the wealth of the people at the top. 2. The EU has prohibited the use of airport body scanners that use x-rays. In related news, the Transportation Security Administration in the United States has failed to follow through on its promise to conduct safety studies on the x-ray machines currently being used in many US…

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Meet the 18 non-Christian American presidents

Meet the 18 non-Christian American presidents

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Over at GNXP, Razib Khan points out the errors1 some media commentators have made when they’ve claimed that if Mitt Romney wins the 2012 presidential election, he would be the first non-Christian president in the United States, or at least the first president outside of “orthodox” Christianity.2 3 Razib points out that this is simply not true – we have had non-Christian presidents before, and cites President Taft (a Unitarian) as an example. Well, as it turns out, we have…

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Links of the day

Links of the day

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1. The hundred year starship project. A new DARPA initiative to explore what it would take to develop interstellar travel over the next hundred years. 2. The genetics of happiness. Recent research suggests that about one-third of the variation in people’s happiness levels is heritable. The gene which seems to account for increased happiness was found least often among those of Asian ancestry and most often among those of African ancestry, with Europeans falling in the middle. 3. More jobs…

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Let’s go visit the planets!

Let’s go visit the planets!

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I’ve finished my very first children’s book, and it is now available for sale. I wanted to write a book about astronomy that had good rhymes my 2 year old son would enjoy. The result is my first book, “Let’s go visit the planets.” You can download a PDF version here. A high-quality, full color, soft cover copy of the book costs $8 plus shipping, available here.

The problem with elections

The problem with elections

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Even though the 2012 presidential elections are still over a year away, the news is already saturated with stories about the Republican candidates campaigning. We all take for granted that democracy is the ideal system of government, and that our system of elections is an ideal way to select our country’s leaders. But is it? Being a politician requires two completely different skill sets: campaigning skills and governing skills. The two skills sets are very different from one another. A…

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Links of the day

Links of the day

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1. Are Twin Studies “Pretty Much Useless”? A defense of the value of using twin studies to scientifically examine the effects of heredity and environment. Here is another good defense of twin studies. 2. Limits to growth. We have grown used to continuous economic growth. But such growth cannot continue forever. No matter how much we innovate, the physical laws of the universe impose limits on how much the economy can grow. 3. Juno looks back, photographs earth-moon system A…

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Believers vs. Non-believers: Everyone Gets it Wrong

Believers vs. Non-believers: Everyone Gets it Wrong

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A friend of mine shared the following video on Facebook, as if it were by itself a damning attack on religious belief: I think that the research summarized in the video is fascinating, but the video’s creator commits a huge logical fallacy that really undermines its conclusion. The psychology experiments described in the video explain quite well about group dynamics and how we form opinions, but they tell us nothing about how we should react to the majority opinion of…

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Do It Yourself Genetics

Do It Yourself Genetics

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A new industry of direct-to-consumer genetic tests is springing up which let you get information about your ancestry and genetic traits. For Christmas, I ordered a test from 23andme. I’ve discovered interesting information about my health (such as that I am unlikely to get Parkinson’s disease when I get old) and my ancestry. The ancestry part of it has been particularly fascinating, given my mixed ethnic background (my mom is Brazilian, and Brazil is a real melting pot of races)….

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