pharyngula

Look, this page on prayer has numbers on it! You can't argue with that. I wonder if you can pick up a "Divine Consciousness meter" at Radio Shack, and what the units it is measured in are.

Speaking of ridiculous parsing of newspaper articles, here's something Simon Singh wrote: The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not…

I have a…errm…reputation for offending Catholics. It's undeserved, since I try so hard to offend everyone, but also because some Catholics are too easily offended. Can you spot the unforgivable offense the writer is complaining about in this story? Your April 27 front page had an article, "World…

This is going to be pure velveeta, undiluted fake cheese…but I still want to see it. The octopus had better win, or I'll be deeply offended, and will have to picket the theater.

Oh, Ben Stein, I shake my fist at you in rivalry. The infamous apologist for Republican criminality, idiotic economics, and creationist inanity got to present a commencement address to a famous university. As it happens, I'm going to be out of town for a few days now — I'm off to deliver a…

Baseball. Baseball and god. What could be more important? An now a couple of baseball players are in a snit. The Cliff Notes version: After hitting a homer off Wilson in the 12th inning of the Giants' 7-5 13-inning victory, Blake was seen on television making the same well known gesture that Wilson…

The Republicans, apparently feeling that there are no other pressing matters of concern in the governance of our country, are pushing to designate 2010 as the Year of the Bible. I may surprise you a little bit. I endorse this resolution…with a few caveats. I say the Democrats should vote this bill…

Charles Pierce has expanded an essay into a full blown book on Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), soon available in fine bookstores everywhere, and I recommend it highly. You might be wondering what Idiot America is, and he explains it well…

Here's a great opportunity for Minnesota fossil freaks: Minnesota Atheists is organizing a fossil hunting trip to Lilydale park on Saturday, 20 June. Sign up and go collect 440-480 million year old marine fossils. Maybe I'll have to rummage around and find my old rock hammer.

The Irish are looking for ideas and assistance in stopping the imposition of blasphemy laws. Got something to say, or want to volunteer? Leave them a comment.

David Perlman celebrates Darwin's birth year with a short list of evolutionary transitions. It's a strange thing; these kinds of examples are thick on the ground everywhere, published in the scientific literature every week, and somehow, the creationists never seem to be able to find them.

Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into an elephant. Moe was in front, and found himself holding the trunk. "It has a tentacle," he said. "I think we have found a giant squid!" Larry bumped into the side of the elephant. "It's a wall," he said, "A big,…

And her name is Karta, and she is an orangutan. Karta escaped from her zoo pen by using a stick to short out an electric fence, then building a crude ladder to climb over a wall. If only she'd had some coconuts and vines, she would have built a radio and called the Orangutan Liberation Front for…

This morning at 9am, Chris Hallquist will be on Atheists Talk radio to discuss skepticism of Christian apologetics. In addition, it's that time of year — find out about godless summer camp, Camp Quest.

I've been doing it wrong. I was looking over creationist responses to my arguments that Haeckel's embryos are being misused by the ID cretins, and I realized something: they don't give a damn about Haeckel. They don't know a thing about the history of embryology. They are utterly ignorant of…

I like the title of this post: Texas School Board votes on the age of the Universe. In case you were curious, the board decreed 11:3 that maybe it isn't the age all those egghead physicists, geologists, and astronomers say it is.

Hodgkin lymphoma is one of the more curable forms of cancer — the 5 year survival rates for patients who are middle-aged or younger is over 90%, and for kids, it is over 95%. These results assume, of course, that the cancer patient is actually treated with modern medicine — neglect that, and all…

Secularists in Indiana wanted to run a simple message on buses in Bloomington: "You can be good without god". The transit authority refused their money because the message was "too controversial". Too controversial? Is it their position that it is controversial that atheists can be good? I would…

Some of these cults are stocked with puritan prudes. Baptists, in particular, are a bit nuts. A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said. The…

VenomFangX is one of those semi-legendary creationists, one so inane that it's hard to believe. He had a website where he kept all of his ridiculous youtube videos, but it's about to disappear. If you go there now, this is what you'll see: Oh, wow, that's going to leave a psychological scar. As…

The smug and rather imbecilic face in this video belongs to Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, who was interviewed on a conservative talk show, Fox & Friends. Watch it at your peril. Like the recent Matthews/Tancredo incident, it's two people who know nothing about science babbling at…

Hapalochlaena fasciata Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Terry Eagleton and Stanley Fish get another drubbing, this time at the hands of Matt Taibbi. I'd almost feel sorry for them, except that I'm still feeling the trauma of being trapped on a plane with Eagleton's book, so I say…sic 'em. This latest salvo is fired by author/professor Stanley Fish, a…

Really, you can't make this stuff up. An angry letter writer hates those atheists who are making all that racket, and believes that Vox Day's awful little anti-atheist book refutes them all perfectly. You're probably already questioning his sanity and intelligence, but then he takes one more step…

Money is essential to science, and at the same time it can be a dangerous corrupter. There's a common argument, for instance, that a lot of biomedical research is untrustworthy because it is done at the behest of Big Pharma dollars — it's more persuasive to people than it should be, because there…

He has put up a poll on his website that asks a simple question. May 7th is the National Day of Prayer. Will you join us in prayer on Thursday? Yes88% No10% I don't know.3% Hmmmm. Let's see. I think… NO.

We really do have a screwed up culture. Carrie Prejean, Miss California USA, could publicly argue for continued denial of civil rights to gays on air, in a beauty pageant, and pageant officials were unperturbed. Now that semi-nude modeling photos of Prejean are emerging, they are considering…

I want this. It's perfect for those Minnesota winters. I'd wear it every day. Heck, I'd even wear it every night. Unfortunately, it looks like a one-off original creation. I guess I'm out of luck.