pharyngula

There's my son, kicking Republican butts. The years of brainwashing must have paid off.

What kind of lowlife would threaten a dog?

Wired has the perfect article for you: it's called the Battle of the New Atheism, and it's message is that the New Atheists (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett) are, well, right, but they're also obnoxious and unsettling and foolish, and gosh, but youth pastors are cool and nifty and caring. Where does this…

One of the perks of this blogging gig is that Roy Zimmerman sends me his CDs—you want it just for the songs Creation Science 101 and Intelligent Design, although the rest is toe-tapping good, too.

Physiologists have been studying the activity of shrimp on a treadmill—the movie is charming, especially if you like an excess of whirling limbs. You can tell it's not a Bally's ad by the absence of lycra and proudly outthrust breasts.

Would you believe that Barack Obama is the anti-christ? And here I just thought he was an over-hyped, ineffectual politician with a gift for speech-making. Maybe I should vote for him for President of the World after all.

Oh, man, I know this feeling.

Atrios feels somewhat vindicated by Olbermann's success: Of course, stupid people like me have long suggested that the way to counterprogram a right wing news network was not to put on slightly less right wing programming, and that a left-of-center block of programming on MSNBC in prime time would…

Here's a good reason why I prefer to go by the name "PZ": HowManyOfMe.com There are:1,184people with my namein the U.S.A. How many have your name? Too dang many "Pauls," and an awful lot of "Myers," too. (I shall mention that there are almost 5 times as many people named "Myers" as…

You should only read Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion if you enjoy the spectacle of "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching." That's the title of the review, but I think it's more a description of the contents. You can get the gist from just the first paragraph. Imagine someone holding forth on…

As some of you might have heard, the Raving Atheist has been getting increasingly wacky and wobbling towards some weirdly irrational beliefs. The latest turn in the saga is that his disaffected readers have jumped ship and have started a brand new site, Raving Atheists. It's a shame, really: the…

It's a spectacle! It's performance art! Watch Gary blog through the pain! And if you feel any remorse about witnessing someone else's agony, you could always help him out.

The Seed mothership wants to know, "What is the best science TV show of all time?" There's one program that comes immediately to mind… Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man. It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself.…

The Wordburst feature on the Scienceblogs main page sometimes comes up with strange combinations: right now the words of the day are "stupider", "breasts", "Deepak Chopra", "Fisking", and "ingest". One of those other science sites, Element List, is picking on us by running a contest…a contest to…

Evil Bobby (with a name like that, he should know) tells me that Darth Vader's little brother Chad Vader is working as a night manager at a grocery store in Madison. I'm going to have to suggest to my son that he look the place up and toss a tangelo down one of the ventilation shafts, just to see…

The latest in the Hovind trial: a local lawyer recounts his conversations with Kent. Gibbs said Hovind tried to persuade him he had no obligation to pay employee income taxes and explained with "a great deal of bravado" how he had "beat the tax system."Gibbs said Hovind also told him he preferred…

A candidate for state superintendent of eduction in Oklahoma has finally figured out what those things called "textbooks" are for: they're good body armor. His solution to school violence is to explain to kids how they can use a supply of old textbooks to stop bullets. He is a Republican, of course…

This is probably very immature, but for some reason I really want this toy. I shouldn't argue with my inner child. I need to know: if I printed out this sign on heavy stock and mounted it just below the stop sign on my street corner, would I be violating some kind of law?

So I got some email a while back about this free and easy to use web-based chat room service…and heck, it's so simple I thought I'd give it a whirl. Here's a link to a Pharyngula chat room—try it out and let me know how it goes. I'll plan on checking in myself now and then, but don't wait up for me…

New (and old) carnivals I'm just now getting around to: Carnival of the Godless #51 Friday Ark #109 I & the Bird #34 Carnival of Education #89 The next Tangled Bank will be at meta_analyses on Wednesday, 25 October—send links to your science blog entries to PZ Myers or host@tangledbank.net.

If you've been following the news from Florida, you must know that Kent Hovind's trial has begun. We've learned how profitable it is to be creation science evangelist… Heldmeyer said from 1999 to March 2004, the Hovinds took in more than $5 million. Their income came from amusement-park profits and…

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

These things are always a gross oversimplification, but go ahead, take the Worldview Quiz. It uses 23 questions to put you on a two-axis grid with Carl Sagan in one corner, and Pat Robertson in another. Guess which one I call "neighbor"? Your rating on science vs. non-science: 10 Your rating on…

The discussion page for the Wikipedia article on the Discovery Institute has a couple of interesting flags up on it: The subject of this article, Discovery Institute, has edited Wikipedia as User:216.163.84.151 (talk ⢠contribs). The subject of this article, Discovery Institute, has edited…

Some people find the connection evades their understanding, but Ian has found it.

You can get the audio for Dawkins' talk at the University of Kansas now.

Here's another tetrapodomorph fish to consternate the creationists. These Devonian/Carboniferous animals just keep popping up to fill in the gaps in the evolutionary history of the tetrapod transition to the land—the last one was Tiktaalik. Skull in lateral view. This lovely beastie is more fish…

Yes! You can now read the complete works of Charles Darwin free, online. Since an original copy of The Origin will set you back roughly $50,000, last I heard, this is a really good deal.

I've just been informed by Karl Mogel that we're all doomed. A creature of immense size has been spotted on Google maps—it's an insect longer than a football field, and it is devastating Germay. Despite all the discussion, no one is talking about the important issue: how to get rid of it. From my…

Human X (left) and Y (right) chromosomes Did the internet get stupider while I was away this past week? I mean, it's gratifying to my ego to imagine the average IQ of the virtual collective plummeting when I take some time off, but I really can't believe I personally have this much influence. Maybe…