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.
• a longer profile of yours truly
• my calendar
• Nature Network
• RichardDawkins Network
• facebook
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Atheist Nexus
• the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)
My responsibility is to follow the Scriptures which call upon us to occupy the land until Jesus returns.
[James Watt, in "The Washington Post", 24 May 1981]
The Cambrian as an evolutionary exemplar
Modeling metazoan cell lineages
The proper reverence due those who have gone before
Development, medicine, and evolution of the neck and shoulder
Stay abreast of your favorite bloggers' latest and greatest via e-mail, via a daily digest.
« Happy Darwin Day! | Main | Jebus is big. Jeebus is even bigger. Watch out for Jeeebus! »
Category: Weirdness
Posted on: February 12, 2008 10:50 AM, by PZ Myers
The other big holiday coming up is Valentine's Day … so how about some appropriately silly valentines?
Warning: that one is the best one. If it makes you groan, the others will be pure torture. But they do beat out the sappy things we used to hand out in fifth grade.
(TrackBack URL for this entry: )
YES! Send me a free issue of Seed.
If I like what I see, I'll receive 5 more issues (6 in all) for just $14.95. That's 50% off the cover price! If I'm not completely satisfied, I'll simply write "cancel" on the invoice and owe nothing. The free issue is mine to keep.
(Non-U.S. subscribers, click here.)
Comments
Oh come on now. I thought the Marie Curie "We've got Chemistry" and the "Sagan all my love for you" cards were priceless.
Posted by: HumanisticJones | February 12, 2008 10:54 AM
The Sagan one was fabulous!
Posted by: Carlie | February 12, 2008 11:04 AM
Oh - that's easy. Digital Cuttlefish had them nearly a month early... because such a romantic little Cephalopod!
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/02/valentines-day-is-almost-here.html
My favorite by DC:
A rat cadaver's donor heart
Is stripped of every cell
The protein fiber matrix left
Looks like a ghostly shell;
This matrix, in a sterile flask,
Is bathed in rat-heart goo
With both adult and baby cells,
And starts to grow anew.
In only days, the growing heart
May beat, or merely twitch,
Then work, at roughly two percent...
Like yours, you heartless bitch.
Posted by: Podblack | February 12, 2008 11:16 AM
Painful? Perhaps. But beats what the Saudis have done:
Why? Because it is an "un-Islamic" holiday, of course.
Jim D.
Posted by: Jim Downey | February 12, 2008 11:38 AM
Remember The Fifties?
Take my love and shove it up your heart!
Posted by: June | February 12, 2008 12:30 PM
At long last, the religious cops in Saudi Arabia are good for something. What other holiday causes so much misery, both in single people and in non-single people who are plagued with expectations and resentments regarding those expectations?
Posted by: Elin | February 12, 2008 1:13 PM
Ah, Valentine's Day. There's nothing quite so North American as decrying the Hallmark Holiday while simultaneously trying to make last minute reservations at some over-priced fusion-cuisine bistro.
Unless of course, it's decrying how we've lost the 'true meaning of Christmas' while simultaneously reaming out some poor department store clerk for wishing you a 'Happy Holidays' after you've just elbowed some fat nerd out of the way for the last Wii on the shelf.
Then again, maybe I'm just cynical.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 12, 2008 1:27 PM
Arrrrrgh! He beat us to the punch!
http://www.jacksofscience.com/art/bring-love-to-the-lab-with-a-science-valentine/
Posted by: Kieran | February 12, 2008 1:47 PM
My wife, often the very essence of practicality and frugality, has told me of her secret desire for a heart-shaped box of candy. Can I do other than comply gladly? I think not.
Posted by: Mooser | February 12, 2008 2:11 PM
I guess this is more G-rated than the old:
"I wish I were DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes."
That one might go better with Crick or Watson.
I guess one of the discoverers of DNA helicase would be most appropriate for that one, but Mahmoud Abdel-Monem, Hartmut Hoffmann-Berling, and Hildegard Dürwald (I had to look them up) might not be famous enough for non-molecular biologists for it to work.
Posted by: Escuerd | February 12, 2008 2:24 PM
The term "non-molecular biologists" should be "people who aren't molecular biologists" to avoid ambiguity. My apologies if any other types of biologists thought I was singling them out. ;)
Posted by: Escuerd | February 12, 2008 2:25 PM
Kieran: Nice stuff, particularly, the photos of Al and
the Universe!
Posted by: Holbach | February 12, 2008 2:26 PM
Dan Barker wrote a song to the effect of that Darwin Valentine: "It's Only Natural."
Posted by: Tom Foss | February 12, 2008 2:30 PM
Well, let's just say that if I designed a world intelligently it would be totally, like non-molecular. Molecules are icky! You never know where they have been.
Posted by: Mooser | February 12, 2008 3:26 PM
Those are appropriately goofy for HersheyHallmarkDeBeers Day™ (thank you SomeWoman), a non-holiday holiday which demands not to be taken seriously...
Getcher blood diamonds and chocolate made by child slave labour heeeeere!
Posted by: Interrobang | February 12, 2008 3:44 PM
I initially read it as, "I select you, Naturally!" That is, with a comma instead of a period, such that:
Naturally = by (biological, animal) nature
instead of
Naturally = of course; as would be expected; needless to say.
Not necessarily as romantic, I admit... unless of course your significant other is a bio-nerdette like mine. :)
Posted by: s1mplex | February 12, 2008 5:49 PM
Jeez, didn't Chuck D write an entire (half of a) book arguing that sexual selection is an entirely separate dynamic than natural selection, and often at odds with it (resulting in such extravaganzas as the peacock's tail)?
Chuck's argument is updated in semi-popularized form by Geoffrey Miller, THE MATING MIND, who isn't shy about possible psychological implications. Fun read.
Posted by: thwaite | February 12, 2008 9:33 PM
Not exactly apropos of Valentine's day, but I'm now considering sending my parents a card emblazoned "You've really left Lamarck on me".
Posted by: allonym | February 12, 2008 9:50 PM
When you care enough to send the very best...
Hallamark!
Posted by: Kseniya | February 12, 2008 10:49 PM
What, I write a lousy joke about a discredited scientist, and nobody's gonna Haeckel me?
Posted by: allonym | February 13, 2008 12:45 AM
If I get my fiance the Curie card with a magnetic Marie Curie attached, I will radioactively glow with nerdom. And it will rock so hard.
Posted by: Michael X | February 13, 2008 4:37 AM
Receiving that Carl Sagan valentine would rock my world. So I'm sending it to all my friends, selfishly hoping they'll send one back to me.
Posted by: MoxieHart | February 13, 2008 9:41 PM