pharyngula

Nothing has changed out here, Sandy—people still fight over Vikings in Minnesota. I live just a few miles from the Kensington Runestone Museum, and I know better than to dispute it now. (Nah, not really. If some asks, I'll tell 'em I think the runestone is a hoax.)

I can't possibly complain about my hate mail after seeing what Feministing receives.

You may recall that I reviewed Flock of Dodos last week—it's good, you should all see it if you can. The movie now has a distributor, so maybe you can. Unfortunately, this isn't a release for private use yet, so what you need to do is get an institution to fork over $345. Yeah, that's steep, but…

We're working through Carroll's book(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) in my developmental biology class, and today we discussed a couple of chapters that included an amusing piece of fan mail Sean Carroll received. I thought I'd include it here because something about it sounds awfully familiar. The context…

More like this, please. I got this delightful Nietzsche/Family Circus mash-up from Holbo… Keith Olbermann is not insipid, oh no. Would that we had more fiery critics of the Bush/Cheney kleptocratic clown show.

Via Thoughts in a Haystack, here's an article on A Smart Battle Against Intelligent Design that almost gets the right answer, but then falls into the real trap, the conventional wisdom. First, here are the parts I think it gets right. For the last 100 years, scientists, teachers and parents have…

I've long respected the Amish—they aren't Luddites, as typically portrayed, but a community that consciously deliberates over the effects of technology on social interactions, and limits those effects (in ways I would find personally disagreeable, but hey, it's their life), and I like the fact that…

Just read Leiter. So the record had been mixed, even before Bush & his bestiary of madmen, but describing the U.S. as a nominally democratic society seemed to make some sense.  Yet even that status officially ended last week.  The legislation known as "the Military Commissions Act of 2006" (…

Creationists don't lie all the time, and sometimes the truth can slip out. For instance, Ken Ham has recently admitted that they engage in fabrication, and have even shown pictures illustrating how good they are at fabricating "biblical truths." (Yes, this is an example of quote mining.)

By popular request, I've uploaded the slides I used in my talk at NDSU. I fear they won't be very useful; you can see the structure of the talk, but what I was saying was the meat. For instance, there's a slide that says "Francis Collins" and the title of his book, and what I did there was read an…

The Science Pundit has a collection of graphics and movies illustrating echinoderm locomotion. Tube feet are spiffy.

While everyone seems to be hammering on the GOP for their love of child-molesters, we're all forgetting that the Republicans are compensating for that with a bold foreign war to save Iraqis and their children. Why, look at the selfless summary by Mike DeWine: "We're not in Iraq for the Iraqis; we'…

Deja vu, man, deja vu. I remember this magazine cover—I even bought the magazine, not because I was worried about the dog, but because I always read the National Lampoon. This is supposed to be a joke, though. So now Goosing the Antithesis leads me to the Answers in Genesis page, and what do I see…

Brian Rorbough.

If it's quiet on Pharyngula today, it's because I'm off at NDSU giving a talk to the Science, Religion and Lunch seminar, in the Meadow Lark Room in the NDSU Memorial Union (any Fargo residents out there?). The title of the talk is "Accommodation isn't enough: why scientists need to speak out…

So…Intelligent Design creationists have a research program? It's just super-secret, because those real scientists might criticize it, lower its self-esteem, and make it wither away under our skeptical eye. I've heard the same argument from astrologers, homeopaths, and reflexologists.

How we sense the world has, ultimately, a cellular and molecular basis. We have these big brains that do amazingly sophisticated processing to interpret the flood of sensory information pouring in through our eyes, our skin, our ears, our noses…but when it gets right down to it, the proximate…

The Commissar is voting Democratic this fall. On the one hand, I'm not too impressed. It's taken him long enough to realized that the Spoiled Child Presidency of GW Bush has been a catastrophe—the signs have all been there since before the 2000 election, and we moonbats have been called "Bush-…

If you're looking for something seditious to wear, try out the classic designs by Chris Clarke and Tim Murtaugh. We are all enemy combatants and terrorists now, so we might as well advertise the fact.

I get a lot of mail from publishers, and this one had me going for a moment…one thing I don't get is much mail from right-wing sources (other than the usual excoriations, of course.) This one looks so much like authentic Republican PR that it took a moment for it to sink in. Speaking from the…

Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, for the discovery of RNAi. Read Pure Pedantry for an explanation for why this is important. I'll also mention that Carl Zimmer presents his take on this award…and wouldn't you know it, evolution has its greasy fingerprints all over it. I must also promote an excellent…

Jim Macdonald offers some excellent advice to military personnel over at Making Light. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions is straightforward and clear. Under Article VI of the Constitution, it forms part of the supreme law of the land. You personally will be held responsible for all of your…

…just for an excuse to have this wedding cake. (Don't worry, Mary—I want the bride to be the same person I married the first time.)

Since John Wilkins has already commented on Paul Hanle's article on the declining competitiveness of Americans in science, I'll focus my opinion on a narrower point. I think Hanle is precisely correct when he points out that ID and creationism are shackles that handicap science education in our…

Don't you just love how Tom Tomorrow can find the silver lining in every cloud?

A couple of science carnivals will liven up your Sunday evening: Bio::Blogs #4 The Synapse 1(8)

Once again this year, I'm setting up our Café Scientifique-Morris, which is going to be held on the last Tuesday of each month of the university school year. This time around, that means the first one falls on…Halloween! So we're going to do something fun for that one: maybe some costumes, lots of…

As promised… My yard has become DFL Central in my neighborhood, with a swarm of political signs proudly displayed; if I'd taken a picture aiming south, you'd see even more. Can you see the difference now? BEFORE AFTER The red and blue sign in the first was for Collin Peterson, our far too…

I was going to encourage you to read this post by Flea that says nice things about my superpowers (it's a vanity thing, you know), but then I saw something there that sent chills down my spine: Jimmy Dean's Pancakes and Sausage on a stick. With chocolate chips. Excuse me while I run for the…

Analysis of a 1969 recording reveals that Neil Armstrong actually did say "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.".