pharyngula

"The Secret" is the latest New Agey scam; there's an excellent article on this con on Salon: Worse than "The Secret's" blame-the-victim idiocy is its baldfaced bullshitting. The titular "secret" of the book is something the authors call the Law of Attraction. They maintain that the universe is…

A reader sent me a link to this myspace page (don't quail in horror just yet!) called Bark, Hide and Horn—it's by some folkies, and includes some songs. Love songs about mating molluscs and ants and various invertebrates! It's very romantic. Listen if you've long had a lingering suspicion that you…

Last week, I promised I'd watch this documentary about the "lost tomb of Jesus" because it was being advertised here on Pharyngula. Promise fulfilled, but the ghastly program was two hours long—two hours of nothing but fluff. I've put a bit of a summary of the whole show below the fold, but I'm…

A reader sent me this link, thinking I might find it funny. Why, yes I do. Does anyone get Nick Magazine for their kids? We received the March issue in the mail yesterday & I find one of the cartoons to be very inappropriate for kids (m, warning potentially offensive) It's a lame cartoon,…

It's been a while since I put up a collection of the beautifully weird cephalopod-themed stuff people send me. This one isn't entirely safe for work, but it's the weekend, and the naughty picture is lovely anyway.

Youtube has spawned a few copycats, and now there's one called GodTube.com—I think you can figure out what it's about. I'd be willing to let it be, just as I don't bother much with XTube (yes, there's one just for porn!)—if they want to masturbate quietly in private, I'm not going to bother the…

Guess what period the History Channel characterizes as 600 years of degenerate, godless, inhuman behavior? Come on, guess! The Dark Ages. Bunch o' brutal atheists running around covered in dirt and boppin' each other on the head with clubs is what it was, I guess. If you take a look at their…

I got a request for a children's book on atheism—something to counter the usual sunday school tripe kids are fed, a version of The God Delusion for the younger set. Offhand, I couldn't think of a thing. So, I thought, I'd turn to the collective wisdom and see if anyone out there knows of one or two…

Wilson wrote a nice book, The Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), in which he argued that Christians should be leaders in good stewardship of the earth. Now some religious leaders have spoken out against such activities. The Catholic church is babbling about an antichrist. An arch-conservative…

(via Hypnocrites)

Some of you may recall that I got rather cranky with some sensitive Catholics who wanted to cancel a play — "The Pope and the Witch", currently playing on the Twin Cities campus. Unfortunately, although we'd hope to go, we had this succession of snowstorms that made traveling impractical this past…

Mike Dunford takes my side in the War of Angry Words.

Sometimes I think that what public education in this country really needs is a good general requirement for a course in comparative religion. I've thought that one obstacle, though, would be finding teachers who wouldn't warp it to proselytize for their favorite cult. It turns out that there's…

Adam Cuerden sent me a scan of this interesting article from the 1871 Illustrated London News, and I decided I was being terribly selfish keeping it to myself, so here you go — don't say I never share. The image that accompanies it is a wonderful example of old-time illustration; click on it for a…

Tim Lambert summarizes an informal survey of 59 right-wing bloggers: 100% of them deny the idea that humans are the primary cause of global warming, contradicting the scientific evidence. They were also asked about other issues—the majority approve of the "surge" in Iraq, think Bush is doing an…

A while back, I wrote a response to Coulter's piss-poor excuse for a book, Godless. It's actually fairly long and substantial; since there was absolutely no accurate statement of either fact or theory on the subject of evolution in the entire book, and since there was nothing specific to address, I…

This would be really unfair and unkind to my wife, so I've decided to live forever instead. You'll die from a Heart Attack during Sex. Your a lover not a fighter but sadly, in the act of making love your heart will stop. But what a way to go. 'How will you die?' at…

Well, finally…a certain evil monkey quite playing around to bring us Tangled Bank #74, in which he says cruel things about me. You'll want to read it just to see how he crushed my delicate feelings.

We have a fine, meaty collection of carnivals today, and a couple of requests for submissions. Carnival of the Liberals #33 Skeptics' Circle #55 Friday Ark #128 Philosophia Naturalis #7 Scientiæ Carnival #1 (this is a new carnival for women in science, technology, engineering, and math…

(click for larger image)Reconstruction of O. reburrus by M. Collins. The precise arrangement of the anteriormost region remains somewhat conjectural. Halkieriids are Cambrian animals that looked like slugs in scale mail; often when they died their scales, called sclerites, dissociated and scattered…

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

The IDists love to quote me, because I am rather militant in my opposition to their lies. They are particularly fond of one particular quote* that they've even used in their fund-raising literature. They think it's damning; some of my fellow anti-creationists swoon and protest when they hear the…

What kind of wimps are they out there at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities branch? They canceled classes! Just because of a major snowstorm! We'll have to see what happens—it's on the way to the western campus (us) and should hit this evening. I'd also like to know why winter has dawdled…

We do seem to have a bunch of lushes, although that Mooney fellow seems to favor fluids that have only a passing acquaintance with beer—but I shouldn't knock it, maybe that's how he maintains his boyish, youthful appearance. Jennifer Ouellette gives us a more detailed summary of what goes on in the…

Robert M. Sapolsky is one of my favorite science writers — if you haven't read Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predicament(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), A Primate's Memoir(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), or Monkeyluv…

This one has been around for almost a year now, but if you're getting tired of Conservapedia, take a stroll through the CreationWiki. It doesn't generally have that tone of having been written by a gang of third-graders, but there's plenty of stupid on display. (via Unscrewing The Inscrutable)

Many will argue with the conclusion of my title, but there are so many examples of outright intellectual vacuity from people who anoint themselves with the title "conservative" that it is fast becoming a synonym for "ignoramus". We've lately been laughing ourselves silly at the absurdity called…

The evil monkey who is hosting the Tangled Bank this week is experiencing severe computer problems, so the carnival may not appear until tomorrow. I told him that mashing bananas into the keyboard and flinging poo at the screen wasn't good for system stability, but he just bared his teeth at me and…

Wilkins has a good introductory video to the concept of biodiversity—why isn't that post in your basic concepts list, John?