Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
Hey, this is a non-pointless poll — Scienceblogs very own Christie Wilcox is in a contest for a $10,000 scholarship…and she's falling behind. You can look at all of her competition, and there's not a single other blog about science in the bunch, and the leader so far is a blog about cosmetics? Woo…
These are the words of Clint McCance, a school board member in the Midland school district of Arkansas. He was a little bit annoyed that people in his school were wearing purple in remembrance of students who had been bullied into suicide.
Being a fag doesn't give you the right to ruin the rest of…
I have been sent a copy of the cover of the official Pharyngulista passport, produced by MinnieTheFinn.
I don't know about this "People's Republic" stuff. This is clearly a brutal, oppressive dicatatorship.
Oh, wait, is this like calling a small dog "Goliath"?
Warning: Using this passport can get…
I guess I'm not the only person in the world to get ranty emails from devout Christians. I was sent a copy of the message below which was originally sent to a store (name hidden to protect the guilty) which was selling a copy of the hideous leg lamp from the movie, A Christmas Story.
To 'Your…
This is a very poor quality recording of a group of fraternity pledges marching about the Yale campus chanting. You should be able to make out what they're chanting, though: "No means yes, yes means anal."
These privileged man-children made it a point to march past various sororities letting the…
Hooray! The land of Karl Ernst von Baer is full of skeptics and atheists!
By the way, I'm getting flooded with email from all around the world with people requesting acknowledgment of their godless community. I'm trying to spread them out — if I put up a solid wall of "X has atheists!" posts, the…
Imagine you're pregnant. Imagine that you discover the fetus is doomed by serious birth defects, and is going to be stillborn no matter what. Imagine that you weepily go to the local reproductive services to have the futile pregnancy terminated. Imagine (and this is probably the easiest part) that…
At least I think so…I can't read a word of their website. Hey, nobody is going to send me a link to a foreign porn or phishing site and tell me that these are the local atheists, are they?
Oh, wait, it has the word "sekularizam" in there. I think I'm safe, this time.
Only a few weeks are left until Skepticon III takes place, and only a few seats are left — this is a conference that has some fabulous speakers (well, except for me. Since I utterly reject the notion of the supernatural, I'm merely mundane), yet admission is entirely free. All you have to do is…
Not a parody. It's a real PC game, if someone wants to try it out. I'm safe because I only have Macs.
Did you know that I imagine all you participants in the font of endless typing looking exactly like this couple?
(Current totals: 11,231 entries with 1,162,863 comments.)
Jerry Coyne is being berated once again for daring to speak out against the folly of religion. This time, it's a complaint by Michael Zimmerman, instigator of the clergy letter project, claiming that all those positive atheists are driving away the religious people who would support the teaching of…
I'm so glad we have organization like the Republican Party and the Teabaggers to keep our home-grown fascists busy.
And boy do they…I got sent lists of forums,
groups, and
multiple
godless
secular
humanism organizations.
With mixed feelings, I announce the demise of Paul the 'psychic' octopus.
On the one hand, he was a living creature, and I feel sadness at any death. On the other hand, he was a psychic fraud, and I have no sympathy for those rascals. On the other hand, he was a cephalopod, and those especially…
Researchers in Maryland have discovered an interesting quirk: lung smooth muscle expresses on its surfaces a protein that is the same as the bitter taste receptor. This could be useful, since they also discovered that activating that receptor with bitter substances causes the muscle to relax,…
Wait, Finland? Aren't they all atheists there? It might be news if Finland has Baptists. Oh, well, they're just dripping with godless groups, including the Atheist Association of Finland, Skepsis, and the Organization of Free Thinkers. Probably every kindergarden class represents an atheist group,…
This is good, because I've always wanted to visit Tunisia…maybe I'd be welcome among the Tunisiens Irreligieux.
This one is from the Guardian, and features a collection of people from the London TAM, including the amazing James Randi.
I've got to get me one of those adjectives in front of my name. The obnoxious PZ Myers? The annoying PZ Myers? The bootylicious PZ Myers? There must be something.
The big overpriced embarrassment in Kentucky gets all the attention, but the creation 'museums' are sprinkled all over our country, like flyspecks on a sugar cookie. Mmm-mmmm.
Here's an account of visiting the one in Glen Rose, Texas, run by the big-haired Carl Baugh. Every once in a while I'll…
While I was at TAM London, it seemed that every time I had a 5 minute break someone would stick a microphone in my face and record an interview. Now the Righteous Indignation podcast is up, with an interview with me…but you should listen to it for the lovely Merseyside accents. It was almost like…
Michael Voris and his Vortex (of Insanity) have been mentioned here before, but now he's profiled on AP News. He really is nuts: he runs a YouTube channel and makes these strange videos where he demands that America become a Catholic dictatorship, all with a straight face.
Last time I mentioned him…
We're still trying to raise money for science education — donate if you can. We've teamed up with Uncertain Principles and The Thoughtful Animal to raise cash for teachers, and together we've almost brought in $10,000 so far. My personal goal was $20,000, though, so we need more.
I'm hoping some…
We're off to a late start, but the first meeting of the UMM Freethinkers will be held tomorrow, 25 October, at 7:00pm in the Moccasin Flower Room of the student union. I should add that if you aren't a student, but are an interested member of the Morris community who would like to get together with…
I'm seeing the news popping up everywhere now that the Richard Dawkins Foundation is suing Josh Timonen for fraud and embezzlement. The central fact of the story is that Timonen has been accused of diverting 92% of the revenues from the RDF store to his own personal use.
There's not much that can…
Right now on Discovery…it's First Life with David Attenborough, which is supposed to be about the origin of life on Earth. There's a pretty severe metazoan bias, unfortunately, so it's really about the origin of animals, but still it's cool stuff about the Cambrian.
Sophisticated is not a synonym for true.
Probably the most common dodge used by defenders of religion against atheist critics is the magic word "sophisticated," as in, "You only attack the crudest forms of religion, but avoid the more challenging, sophisticated forms of faith." It's an invalid…