Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
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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Whatever tends to prolong the existence of ignorance or to prevent the recognition of knowledge is dangerous to the well-being of the human race.
[Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays]
Deep homologies in the pharyngeal arches
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« The first rule of foo camp is … you do not talk about foo camp | Main | It's like he really knows me! »
Category: Personal
Posted on: August 4, 2007 11:34 AM, by PZ Myers
Another busy day ahead of me: yesterday I met Alex and Bora, shared a dinner table with James Randi, and saw swarms of other people I have to meet today … so off I go to another series of random encounters.
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Comments
Now that's a dinner I would pay money to be at. PZ and James Randi. ::sigh::
Posted by: Rich | August 4, 2007 12:06 PM
Can you prove Randi was there? I'm offering one American dollar to anyone who can prove the existence of James Randi. I personally find Bora more interesting than Randi, but figure the MacArthur money went to his ego.
Cheers,
Dave
Posted by: anonymoses | August 4, 2007 12:16 PM
Why, oh why, am I getting an image of three orcs and a beholder playing bridge around a random encounter table....
Posted by: Graculus | August 4, 2007 12:22 PM
How's Randi survived his heart surgery last year? I hope he's fully active again.
Posted by: Jeremy Henty | August 4, 2007 12:25 PM
I'll also offer a dollar to anyone who can prove the existence of Randi. Preferably by delivering him to my address.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 4, 2007 12:56 PM
The purported existence of James Randi is a satanic hoax intended to usurp the god-given gullibility of believers everywhere.
Posted by: forsen | August 4, 2007 1:20 PM
"The purported existence of James Randi is a satanic hoax intended to usurp the god-given gullibility of believers everywhere."
Nonsense, you simply lack faith in the Rand-man!
Posted by: Callandor | August 4, 2007 1:42 PM
Bora has a picture of Randi with Prof Steve Steve up this afternoon...immediately preceding Martha Stewart! (Yes, that Martha Stewart.)
Posted by: Abel Pharmboy | August 4, 2007 2:14 PM
Who cares PZ?
When are you actually going to do some SCIENCE?
Posted by: Grad Student | August 4, 2007 3:03 PM
For anyone wanting to know what foo-camp is all about, Kara Swisher has a nice video summary that can be found HERE
Posted by: RamblinDude | August 4, 2007 3:07 PM
Abel @8 - thanks for the link. Randi looks a little frail but in good shape for someone who'll be 79 next week!
Posted by: Jeremy Henty | August 4, 2007 3:23 PM
PZ, be sure to look up Chris Adami, of the avida/artificial life research.
--titus
Posted by: Titus Brown | August 4, 2007 3:24 PM
Did you meet Penn & Teller yet?
Posted by: Jophn Danley | August 4, 2007 3:55 PM
You mean you ate a whole one just between the two of you?! ;-)
Posted by: SEF | August 4, 2007 5:45 PM
Aw, how romantic.
Hey "grad student", why don't you go blog about science sometime, then?
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | August 4, 2007 6:36 PM
a little off subject, but I was just over at UTI and read an article there about the atheist "A"... Well, the link led to a "Brownback for President" website. Looks like that site wants to claim victory for Pharyngula posting the "Scarlet Letter A"... I think this is where I should roll my eyes.
Posted by: Scott | August 4, 2007 6:39 PM
He ba-aaaack! That doofus from Harvard is at it again.
Atheist Tracts
God, they're predictable.
by Harvey Mansfield
08/13/2007, Volume 012, Issue 45
[snip]
There was an Epicurean atheism in the ancient world quite different from ours today. That atheism also uncovered tyranny behind the mask of religion, but it was content to point out the power of injustice. Injustice in this view was the way of the world, and there was no remedy for it. The only recourse for a reasonable person was to stay out of politics and live a life of pleasure, seeking calm, watching storms of the sea from ashore, and suppressing one's indignation at injustice.
Today's atheism rejects this serene attitude and goes on the attack. In its criticisms of God it claims to be more moral than religion. But it cannot do this without becoming just as heated, thus just as susceptible to fanaticism, as religion. Today's atheism shows the power of our desire for justice, a fact underestimated by the Epicurean pleasure-lovers. But it ignores the power of injustice, which was the Epicurean insight. Atheists today angrily hold religion to a standard of justice that the most advanced thinkers of our time, the postmoderns, have declared to be impossible. Some of those postmoderns, indeed, are so disgusted with the optimism of atheism that, with a shrug of their shoulders, they propose returning to the relative sanity of religion.
Heehee! Harvard's only idiot professor has spoken!
Posted by: CalGeorge | August 4, 2007 7:46 PM
#17: why do you hate my brain? What did it ever do to you?
Now how do I get that drivel back out?
Posted by: SmellyTerror | August 4, 2007 8:40 PM
I am insanely jealous...but that has nothing to do with this post ;)
I had dinner - at home - with my wife & kids today, which makes it a red-letter-day for sure! I think I'll order a t-shirt with a big red 'D' for days like today.
(backstory: I'm usually traveling during the week, and weekends are busy, busy, busy - so we most often eat out)
Posted by: tony | August 4, 2007 9:38 PM
Geez, you get to hang with Neil Stephenson AND Randi AND Freeman Dyson? But WTF is Martha Stewart doing there? Showing y'all how to tastefully drape lab equipment in batik cotton? Other than her, I'm jealous.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | August 4, 2007 9:42 PM
I think this is where I should roll my eyes.
-Scott
parody: noun. a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it.
;-)
Posted by: Graculus | August 4, 2007 10:14 PM
I don't want to wish ill of anyone, but after what Dr. James Kennedy has just said about evolution on the TV, he can ---- in a ---- of ----!
Posted by: Yodel | August 5, 2007 2:42 AM
And he's re-showing "Darwins deadly legacy" later this month!
I think I'm going to plotz.
Posted by: Yodel | August 5, 2007 2:45 AM
Tough
Posted by: Clarissa | August 5, 2007 7:50 AM
Re #4, I have it on good authority (the president of the Swedish Humanist Association, actually) that not only did Randi survive his surgery, he has it on video and gleefully shows it to those who will watch.
Having dinner with him and PZ would be ... extraordinary!
Posted by: Felicia Gilljam | August 5, 2007 8:32 AM
Aaah! Wait! Disregard that comment. It was Dennett's heart surgery my boss got to watch. I'm such an airhead. Well, at least they both got ... beards.
Posted by: Felicia Gilljam | August 5, 2007 8:34 AM
Everyone should read James Randi's weekly updates. His first tid-bit for today, "BLATANTLY SUPPRESSING SCIENCE". A story about a Netherlands broadcasting corporation removing referrences to evolution from the series "The Life of Mammals" presented by David Attenborough.
Posted by: Deepsix | August 6, 2007 1:03 PM
Posted by: wÒÓ† | August 7, 2007 1:31 PM