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pharyngula | June 7, 2011
PZ Myers at Glasgow Sceptics in the Pub, The Crystal Palaceby KG
The Crystal Palace, where the Glasgow Sceptics in the Pub hosted PZ, is a bit of a disappointment as far as appearances go, being neither crystalline nor palatial, just an over-sized pub. However, the upstairs meeting room is a good size, and a crowd of perhaps 200 filled it but fitted in comfortably for his talk. Most were young, a majority but not a huge majority male, and at least one doing his bit to mitigate global warming with a fine piratical hat. I shared a table with two Edinburgh skeptics, and chatted after the talk…
pharyngula | April 12, 2011[I am totally confused. I have not seen the movie Source Code, although it will be playing in Morris next week, yet I have now seen an explanation of the time-travel paradox in the movie by the physicist James Kakalios, and now here is an explanation by an English professor. You guys sort it out. I'm not going to try to read either of them carefully, until I see the movie. Which is already giving me a headache.--pzm]
"On Source Code and the ethics of the modern technological era"By Brendan Riley
Spoiler Alert: this essay assumes you've seen Source Code or don't mind having the plot revealed…
pharyngula | April 5, 2011
Lawrence Krauss vs. William Lane Craigby Lawrence Krauss
It sometimes surprises me, although it shouldn't, how religious devotees feel the need to regularly reinforce their own convictions in groups of like-minded individuals. I suppose this is the purpose of regular Sunday church services, for example, to reinforce the community of belief in between the rest of the week when the real world may show no evidence of God, goodness, fairness, or purpose.
Nevertheless I was not prepared for the self-congratulatory hype that I have seen spouted on the web, and have received in emails, including…
pharyngula | March 28, 2011
Guns vs. Butterby Audley Z Darkheart
Since the Libyan protests began, the debate over the US led NATO enforcement of a "no-fly zone" has raged nearly everywhere-- news outlets, op-ed pages, blogs, even facebook. It all boils down to one fundamental question: Should the United States be dropping bombs on yet another sovereign nation?
My answer is a simple and passionate "no". I have no interest in discussing whether or not Operation Odyssey Dawn is a truly humanitarian effort, nor do I want to be dragged into another argument over the justification of killing Gadhafi's forces. Instead I…
pharyngula | March 21, 2011
The Credulity of Americans is Unquenchableby Juno Walker
An evangelical pastor and his wife are making money off their 11 year-old son's book about his near-death experience. If you think I sound cynical, you're correct; unfortunately, it seems there are far too few Americans who share my skepticism.
But first, a little background about the story: the son, Colton, was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery for a burst appendix. Upon coming to, the boy recounted how "he had died and gone to heaven, where he met his great-grandfather; the biblical figure Samson; John the Baptist; and…
pharyngula | March 21, 2011
Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, accurately
By OldCola
[Note from pzm: The text of this one is a little rougher than I like, but the content is interesting and addresses the claims of a character who has been lurking about here for a while, and whose work I've criticized before. If nothing else, I'd also like to see a few science posts submitted as guest articles, so think of this as priming the pump.]
The article, "Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, a physicistʼs point of view," by V. Fleury, hasn't steered the revolution expected by Fleury in evo-devo. Two years after the publication,…
pharyngula | March 20, 2011
The Catholic Church still doesn't get it
By Adrian Liston
No matter how many revelations of child sex abuse by Catholic Priests come out, the Catholic Church still doesn’t get it. Take, for example, this story told by the Archbishop of New York, in which he recounts a (probably apocryphal) encounter with an angry man at an airport.
According to the Archbishop, the ex-Catholic said that he cannot look at a Catholic Priest without thinking “sexual predator”. The Archbishop’s response is telling, as he thinks only of the “shame and damage of the wound” that had been inflicted on himself with…
pharyngula | February 25, 2011
An Atheist's View On Abortionby Juno Walker
On the drive home from work tonight I was behind a pickup truck that had a rather large white sign with red letters that read: "ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN" taped to the inside of his back window. In addition, he had a bumper sticker with a picture of a smiling infant and a Bible verse, Jeremiah 1:5. For those who don't know, this verse reads in part: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." I've seen this before; and one of my colleagues cited this verse as the main reason she attends anti-abortion rallies each year in Washington, D.C. But on…
pharyngula | February 24, 2011
Anthropocentrism: All of God's Special Little Snowflakesby Amy Peters
My four-year-old has a book of science activities. One rainy day not so long ago, my husband and son decided to pull out the book and complete a biology activity on classifying living things. The objective was to cut out pictures of animals in old magazines and decide how they should be grouped together. Should they be grouped by the number legs they have? By whether or not they are plant-eaters or meat-eaters? Sea or land animals? Daytime or nighttime creatures?
Let's be honest here. My boy is only four. …
pharyngula | February 19, 2011
In Defense of Mockeryby Iris Vander Pluym
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
-Thomas Jefferson
I read with profound weariness a piece in Salon by Michael Lind entitled Hey, liberals: Time to give the Beck bashing a rest.
Lind is apparently under the impression that (a) Rachel Maddow and
Chris Matthews engage in “constant mockery” of bloviating right-wing
demagogues such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck, and
that (b) this would somehow be a bad thing, because it is likely to
backfire on “liberals.”
He could not be more wrong.…
stoat | February 3, 2010A rush of controversial comments has pushed the burn rate up, and we're over the 10k barrier. You can all stop now :-).
And I'm pleased to say that I have a worthy winner, with no need for me to fudge it (not that I would have done so, oh no indeed): Hank Roberts, with "Your willingness to identify yourself publicly is likely to depend on personal experience..." from von S getting tired of the ranters?. Eli misses by 1 - soooooo close, better luck for 20k.
Now all we have to do is decide on the prize. Which should, I think, either be a guest post or a post by me on a subject of Hank's choice.