Rascally teenagers

Seems like you've raised a girl to be proud of. I'd say "damn" proud of, but damnation implies a belief in hell...

Off-topic: The "Go directly to Google" error on the scienceblogs.com top page is back again for at least the fourth time since last Friday. Could you call up the head nerd at ScienceBlogs and tell him to fire the appropriate incompetent underling? Thank you.

We have been nagging them unmercifully.

Ah, to be a teenager and "unbiased"!

;)

She may be a college student, but you still have some leverage if she is living at home. You could threaten to toss her out in the street if she expresses contrary opinions.

She brings up a very good issue that many people miss. An atheist is someone who dissents from a narrow assertion. That dissent can be from critical appraisal of the assertion, or because they were taught to dissent from it by their parents, or as part of a larger ideology, such as communism. It is only the first that is rational, and of necessity it cannot be entirely taught. It has to be re-created anew by each individual.

We have been nagging them unmercifully.

Thanks, the day it stops happening world peace will spontaneously emerge.

It's not like it's a complex problem either - some git's "customising" their referrer to include a pair of [script] tags. There is no good reason for that to be possible.

Maybe we could set Mark Chu-Carroll on them?

Oh Corkscrew, that's cold. Here we are in a thread about his daughter getting uppity (albeit impressively so) and you're kicking him about getting shut out in the Nerd-off.

Cut him some slack already. You know how depressed those nihilistic atheists get. PZ may be too sensitive to take it.

Rich C.

'salright. When I'm feeling blue about the nerd flop, I just stick a knife in Collins or Miller or the Pope and twist it a bit until I feel better. We bleak nihilistic atheists are actually pretty easy to console.

And I see she's picked up her very own troll, too!

Congrats on raising a fairly cool young woman.

Way to go mom and dad!! No it's not sarcasm I mean it you guys raised a smart woman.

Yeah, there's always the "As long as you're in *my* house, under *my* roof, where *I* pay the bills, " trope, although I can imagine you not being able to get through it without bursting into laughter. Skatje seems like a good egg, from this cross-internet view.

(This is off topic, and may have been noted before, but I haven't seen any mention of it...)

PZ and Pharyngula are mentioned in Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion"! I just picked it up yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to read this on p.69:

"This whole issue, including an independent invocation of Brer Rabbit in the briar patch, is well discussed by the biologist P.Z. Myers, whose Pharyngula blog can reliably be consulted for trenchant good sense."

Of course you realise what you've done, raising a child capable of independent thought? You've lost all control! Your authority is usurped!

Completely off-topic, but somewhat up your street, have a look at this eBay auction:
Stuffed felt squid... thing...

Hmmm. An entomologist of my acquaintance (a marvelous human being and terrific mentor of students) was raised an evangelical Christian, but eventually rejected organized religion and is pretty much an atheist now.

One of his sons is pursuing a master's in chem, while the other is a fairly conservative evangelical pastor. It makes you wonder what works, and what doesn't.

Anyway, PZ, I would be proud to have a child who can explain not only what they believe, but the process they went through in arriving at that belief. Congratulations on rearing an independent thinker....Scott

There's always a danger that a child raised by an atheist will go through the motions and never be more than a Sunday Atheist. Better than a lapsed atheist, I guess.

My father is a paleontologist (Permian amphibians his gig); my mother taught elementary ed majors about biology. My sister got her masters in divinity at the obvious Ivy League college with a thesis on creation science.

I'm the black sheep of the family; I just plug one machine into another. Call me a plumber.

Given how small a world Southern Minnesota is for evolutionary biologists, I've bet you've met up with the white sheep in my family....

It can be so much worse. My 14 y/o militant atheist daughter has decided to go to Catholic high school this year. I'm tearing my hair out as to where I went wrong. Tonight, I was in Powell's books, humiliated, buying CS Lewis the'ology' books. Throughout this martyrdom, I dreaded, "What if someone sees me in the Christian section?" Several middle-aged babes eyed me, then the book titles and walked on by... I'm devistated.

Maybe there was this kind of teaching in the school.

This cartoon on education is from samharris.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_CXC2Zkuw&mode=related&search=

This is the sort of upbringing I'd want to give to my kids, tell them what I do believe, but make sure they feel no obligation to believe such as well and allow them to explore life for themselves.

BTW PZ, this is off-topic but that fish in your blogger avatar is straight up awesome.

Am I the ONLY single idiot, dimwit, non compos mentis, who did not realize before now that young Skatje is the youngest Myers?

I should have guessed from the association of ideas. Duh! I am so effing dumb!! :(

I get an error message on that link. :-(