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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
…and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
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Credulity is not a crime for the individual — but it is clearly a crime as regards the race. Just look at the actual consequences of credulity. For years men believed in the foul superstition of witchcraft and many poor people suffered for this foolish belief. There was a general belief in angels and demons, flying familiarly, yet skittishly through the air, and that belief caused untold distress and pain and tragedy. The most holy Catholic church (and, after it, the various Protestant sects) enforced the dogma that heresy was terribly sinful and punishable by death. Imagine — but all you need do is to recount — the suffering entailed by that belief. When one surveys the causes and consequences of credulity, it is apparent that this easy believer in the impossible, this readiness toward false and fanatical notions, has been indeed a most serious and major crime against humanity. The social life in any age, it may be said, is about what its extent of credulity guarantees. In an extremely credulous age, social life will be cruel and dark and treacherous. in a skeptical age, social life will be more humane. We assert that the philosophy of humanity — that the best interests of the human race — demand a strong statement and a repeated, enlightening statement of atheism.
[E. Haldeman-Julius, "The Meaning Of Atheism"]
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Category: Art • Environment • Organisms
Posted on: July 23, 2006 9:32 PM, by PZ Myers
I have no idea what the cephalopods flying over the city have to do with the ecological message in the small print, but heck, it's a cool picture anyway.
Maybe it has something to do with octopuses swimming over flooded cities, but they look airborn to me.
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Comments
Posted by: Castaa | July 23, 2006 9:57 PM
Well, I for one welcome our new airborn octopus overlords.
Ok, sorry.
Posted by: George | July 23, 2006 10:22 PM
Looks like L.A. on an unhealthy air day.
Posted by: cution | July 23, 2006 11:01 PM
i think they're swimming in water covering a city
Posted by: cution | July 23, 2006 11:02 PM
with.. cloud boats.
Posted by: Avian | July 23, 2006 11:15 PM
I, for one, welcome our new tentacled overlords.
Posted by: craig | July 23, 2006 11:20 PM
I don't think there would be clouds underneath the water. Unless it's squid ink?
Posted by: Avian | July 23, 2006 11:21 PM
Agh! Missed the first comment up there. OKay, have to make amends.
Caption: "The new Boeing 888 offers business class passengers extra leg room!"
Posted by: mjfgates | July 23, 2006 11:29 PM
The poor things don't look comfortable, either. More like they've been shot from a catapult than like swimming... why global warming will cause people to do THAT, I don't know.
Posted by: chapmanbaxter | July 24, 2006 12:07 AM
Ia Ia Cthulhu! Ia Ia Azathoth! Ia Ia Yog Sothoth! Ia Ia Nyarlathotep! Ia Ia, Shub Niggurath! Ia Ia Odhra-guoa! Ia Ia Tasthogguoa! Ia Ia Hastur! Ia Ia Zoth Omog!
Posted by: William | July 24, 2006 12:42 AM
Photographically, they're airborne. The point of the ad is that, should the city be submerged, this whole place will be flooded: "Right *now*, there's air here."
Posted by: Marc | July 24, 2006 1:43 AM
That's a beautiful pic. Must be a vision of that glorious day when the Great Old Ones return, and teach us new ways of revelling in joy...
Posted by: Jeremy | July 24, 2006 1:53 AM
Cool! Found my new wallpaper for the week.
Posted by: James C. | July 24, 2006 2:28 AM
This is what happens when you combine environmentalism, abstract thinking and graphic design all into one.
Posted by: mike | July 24, 2006 3:40 AM
This is what happens when you combine environmentalism and bongs.
It's not the heat that's causing them to fly. The city is very, very humid.
Posted by: frumiousbandersnatch | July 24, 2006 4:44 AM
Flying octopii are the new unicorns. I love this.
Posted by: Alexander Whiteside | July 24, 2006 6:11 AM
Dateline, 2009. Disgruntled science blogger PZ Myers hijacks a planeload of trained Army cephalopods and commences carpet bombing of the capital.
Posted by: wintermute | July 24, 2006 8:27 AM
I'm surprised that WWF would say "nature is revolting". I thought they were pretty much contractually obliged to approve of nature...
Posted by: Sunny | July 24, 2006 10:02 AM
That sounds like... Squids On a Plane!
I think we need Samuel L. Jackson to star in THAT movie.
Posted by: PaulC | July 24, 2006 10:02 AM
So global warming is gonna be like the Beatle's song Octopus's garden?
That doesn't sound so bad.
Posted by: gillo | July 24, 2006 10:15 AM
Anything to do with the fact that global warming might cause an increase in number and size of giant squids? http://www.abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/08/item20020801155009_1.htm
Posted by: PZ Myers
|
July 24, 2006 10:18 AM
Oooh, they've got to give me a walk-on role in that movie. I could happily be the science nerd sitting in coach when the tentacle descends and strangles him. There's a lot of potential there: a scene with tentacles rising out of the toilet would be good, or with the cephalopods using their suckers to cling to the side of the plane and crawl forward towards the cockpit...
Posted by: aiabx | July 24, 2006 11:33 AM
I was thinking that Detroit Red Wings fans were celebrating by flinging octopodes/octopi/octopuses in the air. Except that Steve Yzerman is retiring, and I can't think why they would be happy about that.
Posted by: xebecs | July 24, 2006 12:17 PM
a scene with tentacles rising out of the toilet would be good
How about if the cabin loses pressure and the oxygen masks drop down, but in your case down come some tentacles to wrap around your face instead?
Posted by: trillwing | July 24, 2006 3:47 PM
Those octopuses look as if they've been launched from giant catapults and are just starting to get their bearings. Does global warming entail cephalopod warfare?
Posted by: andrea | July 24, 2006 11:50 PM
I'm just sure that flying octupi has something to do with pirates and the FSM, but I'm too sleep-deprived to suss it out right now ...
Posted by: Sophist | July 29, 2006 9:28 PM
I think the idea is that the smog in LA is getting so thick you can swim in it. Or something.
Posted by: paul | August 2, 2006 8:05 AM
Since I didn't see the birth, at the moment I think they're airborne . . . ;)
Catherine - who believes scientists can also spell.