pharyngula

Eamon Knight finds an irritating debate (you can listen to the podcast) between a real evolutionary biologist, Jerry Coyne, and a theologian and a philosopher, and … Paul Nelson of the Discovery Institute. The first three are all pro-evolution (although I found the theologian to be annoyingly…

Hey, if you've been wondering what the sex symbols of science blogging look like, here's your chance: a video of some bloggin' microbiologists hanging out in Toronto. Although, that title … it's hard to imagine an uglier word than "blog," but they managed to coin one.

Whoa…there were a lot of people at Drinking Liberally last night, and I was rather overwhelmed with all of the introductions. How about if attendees use this thread to tell everyone and remind me of who you are—pass along links to your Seattle blog, too, or give us links to pictures. It was a great…

A high school student loans a friend, another high school student, his copy of The God Delusion. Two things happen: the friend's father loses his cool and complains to their school, and a school administrator suggests that this was an establishment clause violation. And this was at a school that…

TR Gregory is wondering whether a blog post can do anything worthwhile … and so he's trying to encourage donations and contributions to his parents' new charitable project, The Livingstone Performing Arts Foundation. This is an effort to set up a self-sustaining institution that will benefit the…

We made a visit to my boyhood home, the small town of Kent, Washington. It's changed — it's been commercialized and yuppified and embiggened beyond all recognition — but I thought everyone would appreciate seeing the shrines erected in my hometown to me. Here's my boyhood home on 2nd and Titus,…

Here's your next chance to intercept me: I'll be at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, at the Montlake Ale House tonight at 8:00. Last chance until Friday! By the way, if you're wondering which one is me, I'll be wearing this t-shirt.

One of the early blogs that I very much enjoyed was The Rittenhouse Review, a Philly blog which I discovered shortly after leaving Philadelphia. It had gone quiet a while ago, rather mysteriously — it's another of those odd things about this medium that there can be so few signs of what's going on…

There's a rather unsurprising study that shows babies can "lie" at a very early age, deceiving their parents with fake cries as early as six months (any parents out there? You know this is trivial—kids pop out of the birth canal as greedy, selfish little beasts who will do anything to cajole their…

The National Education Association is having their annual meeting in Philadelphia right now, and guess who's there? Answers in Genesis! It's rather like finding the Mafia has a booth at the police convention, but there they are, with lots of pictures, proudly peddling creationist dogma that is not…

You really must have headphones on when you listen to this wonderful exercise in stereophony. There's more information on how it was made at toomanytribbles. You've gotta love your brain and the way it can translate phase and timing differences in sound into a spatial map, without you really…

The giant squid and I have so much in common.

We made it safe and sound to Sea-Tac late last night, and bright and early this morning we made a quick trip to the local grocery store to stock up on breakfast supplies, and we discovered that we really are in Seattle. The grocery carts had cup-holders. And of course there was a Starbucks inside…

Sharpton is amusingly outclassed. (via toomanytribbles)

Peggy has an excellent discusion of the peculiar attitudes towards biology held by physicists and engineers, which includes this wonderful complaint by Jack Cohen: In summer 2002, I was at the Cheltenham Festival of Science. Lots of biologists presenting, for sure. But… one very popular event was a…

Yes, I am away for this week — I'm off wearing flannel, listening to grunge, and drinking coffee as I chop down trees in the rain (did I miss any stereotypes?). Updates to Pharyngula will still happen, though, so don't abandon me completely. They will be more sporadic, but when they do happen,…

I have to go catch a plane to Seattle, so I'll leave you all with a little exercise. This random bit of creationist email just sailed in over the transom—it's simple and to the point, and isn't even afflicted with the usual random font stylings I get. It's still just as kooky in its substance,…

What properties should we expect from an evolved system rather than a designed one? Complexity is one, another is surprises. We should see features that baffle us and that don't make sense from a simply functional and logical standpoint. That's also exactly what we see in systems designed by…

Carnivals! We're hawking Carnivals! Carnival of Mathematics XI Friday Ark #145 I and the Bird #52 The next Tangled Bank will be held on Wednesday, the 4th of July, at Aardvarchaeology. Send those patriotic, all-American links in to the Swedish guy, to me, or to host@tangledbank.net. Beyond…

A rather unsavory character, Dr Johannes Lerle, was jailed in Germany for violating their laws against neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial. I discussed this earlier this week, and as Gerard Harbison and Andrew Brown have recently pointed out, he was not a very nice man at all…a bit of a kook, really.…

You may recall that I'd mentioned how Cheri Yecke was hiring a company called "reputationdefender" to expunge unflattering references from the net. One of her targets was Wesley Elsberry, who had reported that she was in favor of allowing local school districts to elect to teach creationism (this…

The ScienceBlogs buzz today is on Atheism and Civil Rights, and the opening blurb gets it wrong. Richard Dawkins and other contemporary atheists have argued recently that America's faithless are subject to discrimination akin to that faced by women, racial minorities, and homosexuals. But is…

I guess y'all are having a drought, and your farmers are worried. I sympathize, and I do hope you get some good healthy summer storms soon. But, well, your governor is a dufus. With the state's weather forecasters not delivering much-needed rain, Gov. Bob Riley on Thursday turned to a higher power…

The Nevada System of Higher Education wants to arm their faculty. That's insane. We have rare instances of students going on a shooting spree; I don't see how turning the classroom into a firefight is going to stop that, and I also have a suspicion that any homicidal maniacs will henceforth simply…

Mrs Tilton, meet Warren. Warren, this is Mrs Tilton.

At last, I get it. I understand what "framing" is. It's pandering to the status quo, the petty conventions, and the bigotry of the majority. It means don't rock the boat, don't be different, don't stand up for your beliefs. It means CONFORM. You will get other people to support you if you just…

…you'll like this paleontological flickrset.

Enteroctopus dofleini, the giant Pacific octopus Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

removed at the request of Gary Larson Figure from Bride of the Far Side(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Gary Larson.

Albert Mohler might be freaking out at some of the new biotechnologies, but he missed a big one, one that might give him nightmares: synthetic biology. This week's Nature has a very fine editorial on a subject that's probably going to be more troubling to the religious than evolution, in a few…