pharyngula

Now that he's been drummed off the NY Times editorial pages, I guess Ben Stein can throw restraint to the winds. We have … an entire party, the Democrats, whose primary constituency, besides the teachers' unions, is homosexual men and lesbian women. I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that…

A full English fried breakfast served in a cocktail glass made out of bacon.

I got a letter from John F — you know, John Flansburgh, of They Might Be Giants — and he says, "We've got this new album coming out that you might like, want me to send you a copy?", and so I nonchalantly type back, "Sure, here's my address," which was really hard to do when you understand that I…

The Catholic church has instructions for you before you get down to business with your sweetie: you're supposed to say a little prayer. This one. Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth…

The BBC has an article on the recent direct measurement of human mutation rates, and while it's not a bad article, it does seem to express the view that the result is something novel. It's not; it's a confirmation of a standard measure that scientists have known about for a long, long time. We have…

This peculiar little email is nothing special, but is actually rather representative. It's interesting because most atheists will read it one way, where I suspect he actually means it another way. Professor Myers, My name is Jack Heidman and I am an F15 pilot and commercial airline pilot for…

If you're going to build a massive con to defraud people out of $50 million, you want to pick your marks carefully. You want people who are gullible, don't demand a lot of evidence, and are willing to go along with you as long as it takes to milk them dry, as long as you promise bliss. Where would…

Let's hear it for the arts! The detestation of Genesis is universal, but hey you Brits! Instead of nagging on our creationist creepazoids, maybe you need to pick on the creationists in your backyard. Although, I have to say, the English creationists seem much less unpleasant than Ken Ham. It's…

When we hit that poll at Sedalia the other day, the newspaper noticed — they actually have a news story on their poll being crashed. Richard DeFord, The Sedalia Democrat interactive systems manager, said Saturday's online paper had 25,118 page views, Sunday had 22,096 and as of 4:40 p.m. Monday had…

Old-timers may recall that there was a little event last year that had a lot of people riled up — there were angry letters to me and my university, with frequent demands for my immediate firing. The university stood up for academic freedom, I'm happy to say, but there was one other concern. A lot…

One of the big issues in science education is the topic of science standards: each state is supposed to have guidelines for the public school curriculum, which are intended to enforce some uniformity and also make sure that key subjects are covered. These standards are often accompanied by big…

I've always rather liked Bloggingheads — at least the idea of it, with one-on-one discussions between interesting people. It flops in execution often, since some of the participants wouldn't recognize reason and evidence if it walked up and slapped them in the face with a large and pungent haddock…

I know, my title is very controversial…but the BBC has a photo gallery of Arctic jellies. Judge for yourself!

When you tie a university to a religious ideology, you create stresses that show that the modern search for knowledge is the antithesis of religious dogma. I keep telling people that science and religion are in opposition, and here's a perfect example: La Sierra University is a Seventh Day…

Which makes this video very, very smathy. That's Carl Baugh, by the way, who appears regularly on the Trinity Broadcast Network to teach viewers about creationism. It's a good program to watch (I do, now and then) if you want to see how flinking bugnuts insane young earth creationists can be.…

I'm captured on yet another podcast: Chariots of Iron, the one thing god's armies cannot defeat.

Kristin Maguire, chair of the South Carolina State Board of Education, has resigned from her position for all the wrong reasons. She has been a shill for the religious right, and has opposed the teaching of evolution in the public schools; she has also promoted that worthless 'abstinence only' sex…

This is definitely not safe for work, but I had to include it because you just know the Catholic League will freak out over it. And remember: 30 September is International Blasphemy Day. What will you be doing to outrage the fanatics?

Steven Novella has an excellent analogy for the Sedalia evolution t-shirt nonsense: What if the Krishnas had complained about a t-shirt that showed a rocket going to the moon? Apparently, they don't believe in space travel at all, so it would have been just as offensive to them — and it's amazing…

It's too accurate. That's not the punchline, either — it's just the setup. You'll have to read the whole thing. Don't miss the one right after it, either — it explains how science publishing works.

(via Flickr)

Via ERV and Coyne, I've learned that there was a poll associated with that story about the yanked evolution shirts for the Smith-Cotton band program. You must pharyngulate this poll! Should the Sedalia school district have pulled the Smith-Cotton High School band T-shirts? Yes, the evolution image…

I'm sorry, you are all required to watch this video before doing anything else today. Don't worry, you'll enjoy it. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! The Vatican from Brewster on Vimeo. (via Atheist Media Blog)

This is the t-shirt worn by the marching band of Smith-Cotton high school of Sedalia, Missouri. The 'ascent of man' image is a bit irritating — it is a portrayal of a fallacious idea of directionality in evolution — but the designers had a reasonable goal in mind. Assistant Band Director Brian…

The Pope has become an environmentalist, and he has figured out who is causing all our ecological difficulties: the atheists. Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where his existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the…

Whew, dodged a mistake — the movie is on RIGHT NOW! An alert reader caught me in time and let me know I live in the Central Time Zone. I haven't even touched the hooch yet. It starts with Deborah Gibson, Submarine Pilot, dodging angry whales, and...breaking a giant octopus out of a block of ice?…

Several readers have alerted me to this artful cover from Play magazine. Why must the videogames always be about the nasty wicked violence? Put away the weapon, young lady! The mysterious creature only wants to play. But it does remind me…Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus is on TV in about an hour and…

Our silly little friends at Answers in Genesis have said a few more stupid things. Hey, why aren't you surprised? The first is predictable and ridiculous: they have discovered the PR about finding a function for the appendix. The creationists are so happy! It confirms that Darwin was wrong (…

Denyse O'Leary has a contest: provide a copy of the source code to Dawkins' Weasel demo. The prizes are your choice of a copy of Dawkins' new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, or Meyer's creationist apologetic, Signature in the Cell. It must be like that television game show where you get to choose…

The fundamentalist community has a strong interest for some bizarre reason in converting homosexuals into heterosexuals. They consider homosexuality nothing but a bad personal choice, and therefore all gay people need is a little Jesus and they'll switch back to finding the other sex more…