pharyngula

Friday Ark #133 Scientiae #3 I and the Bird #46 Talk among yourselves for a bit — I'm on my way to Minneapolis, where I will deliver Skatje to Minicon and to partake of the entertainment there for a little while, before driving back home in the cold and the dark to a busy weekend of paperwork.

Larry Moran criticizes a dramatic Youtube video that purports to show how evolution works. He asks if we think this helps or hurts the cause of evolution education. Speaking as an evo-devo guy (forgive me, Larry), I'd also say it hurts. Without understanding the mechanisms of morphological change…

Jonathan Wells apparently felt the sting of my rebuttal of his assertions about Hox gene structure, because he has now repeated his erroneous interpretations at Dembski's creationist site. His strategy is to once again erect a straw man version of biologist's claims about genetic structure, show…

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

Matthew Nisbet and Chris Mooney have a short policy paper in Science that criticizes scientists for how they communicate to the public. Mooney says that "many scientists don't really know what they're up against when suddenly thrust into the media spotlight and interactions with politicians" — I…

A hagfish egg with a 14.3-mm pharyngula-stage embryo inside (arrows). Scale bar, 5 mm. I've been looking forward to seeing these little jewels in print since I saw Kuratani talk about them at the SICB meetings in January. Hagfish are wonderfully slimy jawless chordates that have been difficult…

I'm sure you're familiar with the ubiquitous Darwin fish (which you can buy from Ring of Fire Enterprises, by the way). Here's your chance: now you can improve on that old design by intelligently designing your own version (or as I prefer to think of it, developing and evolving your own version by…

The transcript of last night's Anderson Cooper segment is available. My assessment: it was a pro-religion/pro-creationism show that gave undue reverence to nonsense. Tom Foreman, one of the reporters, was a pandering fool. Anderson Cooper was an obliging tool. Most of the interviewees were…

If I see Francis Collins' pious, simpering facade one more time, I'm going to get really pissed off. Can someone please give that man a Templeton Prize and let him retire to the Cascades, where he can stare at waterfalls to his heart's content? CNN has an article on "Why this scientist believes in…

As soon as Richard Dawkins opens his mouth, I started laughing…and when Ted Haggard starts singing, well, I lost it. You must watch this video!

It's not nice to annoy a fellow atheist, but once again we've got someone bound and determined to promote himself by dividing atheists into artificial camps and slamming the side with which he doesn't identify. Greg Epstein, a "humanist chaplain" (whatever the hell that contradictory concatenation…

It's Thursday, 5 April, and you know what that means: today is the day of the Mutant Variety Show here in Morris! At 7:00 this evening, in the HFA recital hall, all of the local mutants will be exhibiting their bizarre phenotypes to the public. I'm very much looking forward to it, and anyone else…

The poor fellow has an irresistible quote-mining reflex, unable to leave even the most innocuous statements alone. After his deplorable puppy-killing slander, he's trying to slime Darwin again, and coming out looking like a pathetic wanker himself.

The Discovery Institute has challenged SMU profs to debate at the "Darwin vs Design" event in Dallas. No takers so far; I'm not surprised, any scientist who participated would be increasing the DI's reputation immensely simply by sharing a meeting room with one of those clowns. But the DI is in the…

On The Infidel Guy, Abby of ERV goes up against a ranting crackpot, Leonard Horowitz, who thinks AIDS is the product of a secret conspiracy. She handles herself very well. It's painful to listen to—Horowitz is a master of the bellowing Gumby style of discourse, and he believes in some very looney…

Tonight on Anderson Cooper (CNN, 10pm ET), we're apparently going to get a preview of Ken Ham's shiny new pseudo-scientific creation "science" "museum". Tune in for a good laugh! (via DefCon Blog) Gaaaah! I managed to watch it for 20 minutes before giving up on it. It was one big load of religious…

This is terribly petty of me, but it's something that always makes me laugh: watching someone in a pickup truck try to parallel park in downtown Morris. You have to understand that traffic is low, there's always lots of open parking spots, so it's a skill that doesn't get exercised much out here.…

If you were ever wondering what the slogan "Teach the Controversy" really means, Patrick Henry College explains it for us: Creation: Any biology, Bible, or other courses at PHC dealing with creation will teach creation from the understanding of Scripture that God's creative work, as described in…

Michael Egnor is the gift that keeps on giving. He's been responding to criticisms from us sciencebloggers with more and more inanities — it's like all you have to do is poke him and he starts puking up more and more transparently fallacious creationist talking points. Mark Chu-Carroll schools him…

One recurring theme I have going on here is that creationists aren't necessarily stupid (although some are, very much so) — their problems are ignorance and arrogance. Those two traits reinforce each other; the ignorance allows them to think their pitiable store of knowledge is adequate and allows…

This evening, I am watching an episode of that marvelous and profane Western, Deadwood, as I type this; it is a most excellently compensatory distraction, allowing me to sublimate my urge to express myself in uncompromisingly vulgar terms on Pharyngula. This is an essential coping mechanism. I have…

It's good to see everyone standing up for the honor their profession. I'm sorry, though, engineers—you still aren't quite off the hook. James Kakalios has informed me of one of your fellows who has besmirched the reputation of the whole lot of you. Yeah, I know, he's probably one of those…

Steve Stanton, the city manager of Largo, Florida, is getting a sex change operation. That news is grounds for firing him. Injust as that is (but so damned typical), I was amused by this remark: "If Jesus was here tonight, I can guarantee you he'd want him terminated," said Pastor Ron Saunders of…

We're building up a biased sample that damns an entire profession — Dr Guliuzza, Dr Egnor (who seems to be adopting a more traditional creationist stance), and now Dr Keith Holmes (submitted by Transcription Factor), and so many more — and I thought maybe I should correct that by inviting everyone…

So I got up this morning and looked out my front window, and this is what I saw: Then I looked out the back door, and it wasn't any better (as if I'd expected the weather to be localized to only the northeast half of town): I hadn't been paying any attention to the weather reports lately — in the…

Those wicked farkers have taken this charming photo of a clutch of innocent cephalopod embryos and … and … oh, I cannot even describe the perversities they have wreaked upon them. Do you think if I work up a good head of outrage, I'll be able to get on Fox News, get a few people fired, and shut…

I've got a copy of the student paper for Ridgewater College, the Ridgewater Review, volume 11, number 5, which contains an announcement: Can anyone know for certain how the earth began? Ridgewater's Christians in Action student club is sponsoring talks by Dr Randy Guliuzza exploring this topic and…

Lots of biology, and a little godlessness today: Mendel's Garden #13 bio::blogs #9 Carnival of the Godless: You're going to hell edition Circus of the Spineless #19

I'd been kinda hoping to be Inara, but this is good enough. Your results:You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 55% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 30% Jayne…

A lot of people (really, a lot—I've got a stack of emails on this subject) have been complaining that their browsers routinely crash on loading this site, and a few have been telling me about other peculiarities. The epidemic struck about the time we added the new video ads. As an experiment, those…