pharyngula

We've got a few new trolls/poes babbling in some of the threads, and it's getting out of a hand. I think it's time to remind you that the list of bannable offenses does include godbotting — and it doesn't matter if you are sincere or if you're clowning around, once I get tired of the games I will…

(Image from Cephalopods: Octopuses and Cuttlefishes for the Home Aquarium(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) by Colin Dunlop and Nancy King.)

She had a good run, although part of her life was marred by mental illness and religion. Now an icon of the sexual revolution is gone. I'm rather curious to know how many readers here have never heard of her before — this could make me feel very old.

That festive holiday mood is beginning to stir…

Richard Dawkins' spring tour of the United States is bringing him to Minneapolis — he'll be speaking in Northrup Auditorium (the huge auditorium on the UMTC campus, so there should be lots of room for everyone) on 4 March 2009. Be there! In other Dawkins news, he has posted an unused and unedited…

A student, Brandon Creasy, submitted an opinion piece on evolution to the school news magazine. The principal, Kevin Bezy, rejected it and has held up publication of the magazine until it is revised. Bezy explains himself, and it's the usual kind of weasely nonsense that makes me very snarly in the…

The skirmish over Christmas in Washington state just gets funnier every day. Now someone wants to put up a Festivus pole in the capitol. That's hilarious enough, but it gets better. The Westboro Baptist Church has demanded to be allowed to put up a sign that says, "Santa Claus will take you to Hell…

Last spring, I mentioned that Americans United was suing to block South Carolina from promoting religion via an "I Believe" license plate. Good news today: a judge has issued a preliminary injunction against the state. Christmas is doomed!

I made a mistake that was quickly corrected by a correspondent. Yesterday, in writing about copy number variants in human genes, I used the example of the amylase gene on chromosome 1, which exists in variable numbers of copies in human populations, and my offhand remark was that the effect is "…

Pareidolia is putting the Virgin Mary in all sorts of strange places. The latest: in the MRI of a woman's brain. She's trying to sell it off on eBay, of course. It's a silly illusion, but as I looked at it, I had an epiphany. It's a body part. There's a little nubbin for a head beneath a hood,…

Whenever I see a magazine with Chinese calligraphy on the cover, which I cannot read at all, I have to wonder if it means something strange, like "My nipples explode with delight". The journal of the Max Planck Research Institute was hit by this little problem: they used some lovely Chinese…

Mike Huckabee is a smug little hypocrite who tries to defend his opposition to gay marriage by arguing that a) it's traditional (never mind that marriage has changed greatly since biblical times), b) it's natural and necessary for procreation (ignoring the fact that a childless marriage is still…

The Secular Alliance of Indiana University took a field trip to Ken Ham's Creation "Museum"…and they made a video! SAIU trip to the Creation Museum from Secular Alliance on Vimeo. Now nobody else needs to go. I suspect the nosh at the Waffle House at the end was the highlight of the expedition.

The Muslims have entered the fray now — one crazy lawyer, Anjem Choudary, is calling Christmas evil. How can we godless top that? The very concept of Christmas contradicts and conflicts with the foundation of Islam. Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of…

The Institute for Creation Research has a charming little magazine called "Acts & Facts" that prints examples of their "research" — which usually means misreading some scientific paper and distorting it to make a fallacious case for a literal interpretation of the bible. Here's a classic…

Oh, boy — get out the model airplane glue and little bottles of paint: you can build a model of Noah's Ark! And it's only $74! (The price of plastic models has sure gone up since I used to buy them with my lawn mowing money). This injection molded plastic model kit measures over 18 1/2" long and…

Ken Ham of the Creation "Museum" linked to an old thread from June, prompting a sudden influx of dull-witted creationists regurgitating old canards. Normally I wouldn't mind — the poor dullards don't get much outlet on the creationist sites, which typically prohibit any kind of expression from…

AOL is running several polls on Bush's recent statements — they seem more shocked by the fact that he didn't believe the bible was literally true than that he doubted evolution. Anyway, have fun, but keep in mind that these are polls that are heavily trafficked so we probably won't make that big a…

I've been wrong. I've argued that destroying America's educational infrastructure and promoting stupid ideas like creationism will inevitably erode our country's competitive standing in the world marketplace. I've always thought the only way to correct that was to improve public education — but…

The scene above is from a Pentecostal church in Detroit, where workers are rightfully concerned about their economic future. The religious approach, however, seems to be to put a couple of big ol' dinosaur SUVs (at least they're hybrids in this case) on stage, streak people's foreheads with oil,…

Here's an interesting example of genetic programming: use a program that slightly alters colored polygons, compares the results to a target, and selects variants that most resemble the Mona Lisa. After less than a million generations, a black square turned into this: Not bad. The description of…

Bill O'Reilly makes one of his trademark screeds against the War on Christmas, but it doesn't quite have the effect he intended, I think. He's very cranky about the atheist sign in the capitol of Washington state, which is Olympia, so he rants against Seattle. I'm sure it makes sense in Billo World…

Please go away, Mr Bush. And please, President-elect Obama, clear away the rotting debris of this ghastly administration. The latest example of dreadful Bush appointees: Stephen Johnson, head of the EPA. Asked about the evolution/creation debate, this is what he had to say: It's not a clean-cut…

He has written recently about the terrorism in Mumbai. Grand old hotel, in an increasingly progressive and prosperous India: Suddenly, hundreds of innocent, unsuspecting people are hostages, some of them being systematically murdered. Bombs are exploding, people are screaming, military are…

Uh-oh…I've been so scatterbrained lately that I've neglected the Molly Awards. You know how it goes: I put up a post for nominations, leave it to simmer for a while, it scrolls off the bottom of the page, and I lose track of it all. Then I come back and the soup is all scorched and horrible. Oh,…

If you haven't been following the New Humanist advent podcast, where each day someone picks a scientist/philosopher they'd like to see honored for the holidays, you've missed Robin Ince (he likes Carl Sagan), Christina Martin (a Russian father of soil science, or several others), Alexei Sayle (…

Well…3D Science News recently ran an article on Harun Yahya and the Turkish censorship of Richard Dawkins' site, and what happens? Turkish hackers wipe out the news site (turn your speakers down if you visit — they've got it playing some obnoxious music now).

There was a protest against the atheist sign in the Washington state capitol this weekend. These people don't seem to pay much attention to what comes out of their mouths. "The No. 1 thing is, we want the state of Washington and the governor to represent everyone in the state," said the Rev.…