pharyngula

If you've ever been curious about the intelligent design of language, here's a new one for you: Edenics. Here you will discover that ALL human words contain forms of the Edenic roots within them. These proto-Semitic or early Biblical Hebrew words were programmed into our common ancestors, Adam and…

A weird anti-evolution crank seems to be ramping up his efforts around the blogosphere recently: C. David Parsons has been leaving comments at Florida Citizens for Science, and Wesley Elsberry directly addresses his "conflict driven" views. Parsons has apparently been trying to raise his profile…

I'm dying here, people. It's spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spammity, spam, spam, spam. I get up every morning and get to spend a half hour cleaning up the crap that accumulates every night, and have to invest more time at intervals during the day…

Let's start the new year on a wishful note — here's hoping we have a wonderful 2008 with a sweet song from Israel KamakawiwoÊ»ole. If you'd prefer the classic version, here's Judy Garland and Sarah Vaughan. I had to go with Iz, though, just because tropical islands and ukeleles are about as un-…

I'm saying it a few hours early because when the clock ticks over to midnight I expect you all to be snogging or otherwise partying away, unless you're one of those sensible types who doesn't think having to get a new calendar is anything to celebrate, so you're off to bed for a good night's rest.…

Yikes. More Florida school boards — in St Lucie, Palm Beach, and Martin counties — are infested with creationists. Florida Citizens for Science is maintaining a watch list. So…have you checked your local school board? Do you have creationists biding their time, waiting to corrupt your schools?

It's those poor creation scientists.

I've been slacking off on Pharyngula lately — I've had a week to relax and get caught up on a few other things. Here, though, are a few links to ridiculous religiosity that have been piling up in the mailbox. Cockroaches are God's wrath. And did you know Jesus had a roach problem? Vera Ivie…

I must confess: I've always identified with Gomez.

That friend to the Discovery Institute and creationist advisor to the Vatican, Cardinal Schönborn, has a new book out, titled Chance or Purpose?. I haven't read it, but Michael Behe has, and Zeno finds a particularly delicious Behe blurb: Science cannot speak of ultimate purpose, and scientists who…

Elle Jacobson is a high school student who is skipping school because she's afraid of atheists. Some parents are joining in the fear, all because of one little incident: "This boy got up and his visual aid was a Bible and a book. And he got up and started his speech by saying 'Now, this piece of…

One of my Christmas presents was something just for fun: Superman: The Dailies 1939-1942(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It's a collection of the newspaper strips by Schuster and Siegel that were published in the earliest years of the superhero, and they're both funny and disturbing now. First off,…

OK, 'fess up — some of you know that I thoroughly detest libertarianism, that reactionary political movement that seeks to elevate greed and selfishness as a ruling principle, and I suspect one of you got me a subscription to Reason magazine a few months ago, just to taunt me. If your goal was to…

One little post about waterboarding seems to have stirred up the mob, but at least the majority seem to agree that it is torture. How could it not be? It's a process for causing pain and suffering, nothing more. At least the commenters here, even the ones I disagree with most strongly, are more…

Someone was willing to try waterboarding on himself — he was in complete control, but he still found it a terrifying experience. Now we just need to get all our representatives who claim it is not torture to try it themselves.

It's still Friday, isn't it? Some of you have noticed there was some screw-up in post scheduling, which has been fixed now…and here at last is the Friday Cephalopod. Sepia sp. Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

From Cectic: Quote of the week: "Either the theory is wrong, or I'm just incredibly stupid." -Todd Friel on Evolution, from The Way of the Master Radio for 24 Dec. The first true utterance I've heard on that show since I started listening to the podcast.

Next time I'm told by some "scientific" racist that he has evidence backing up his contention that certain races are inferior, I'm just going to tell him that there is one more experiment he has to do.

Jon Swift asked for various blogs to submit a "best of" post for his end-of-year list, and it's a clever way to get an idea of a blog's content and introduce yourself to some interesting blogs. My entry is a science post, but even that one consigns me to an eternity in hell.

Denyse O'Leary is a very silly person, but you all knew that. One of her latest entries on her silly Design of Life blog, which purports to be promoting Dembski's silly book of the same name, is treading old ground. She's claiming that convergence is common, and that marsupial lions and wolves and…

When I read this tale of woe, I have to admit I had a hard time feeling much sympathy for the victim. The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches. And so…

Scarcely do I mention Ann Coulter and my challenge to her fans, than one such fan shows up in the comments. You will not be surprised that this person didn't even try to meet the challenge, which is to cite some specific paragraph in Coulter's drecky book, Godless, that they considered to be…

A 2 year old girl picks up a screwdriver, runs around, falls, and… She's fine now, fortunately — it somehow missed her brain. The father calls this event a "Christmas miracle." That God fella. He's such a card, poking little girls in the head with screwdrivers.

Well, they've got one Republican and one Democratic congressman to agree to co-chair a presidential debate on science, which is good news. The framework for the debate is coming together…now all they need is some debaters.

This is no way to run a country.

Yeah, they're already pouring in: everyone has a list of the best or worst of 2007. Most I couldn't care less about, but the Beast's 50 most loathsome people in America is at least primo grade-A disgust. The winners in this year's list weren't just predictable, they were inevitable.

Peter Irons has again been having way too much fun with creationist shenanigans. Irons, you may recall, is a hot shot west coast lawyer who had a grand time with the Pivar situation, and has lately been nudging Dembski on the case of his misuse of the Harvard/XVIVO animation. Would you believe that…

And it is so apparent on his new blog. The only reason I'll link to it is 1) it's always useful to highlight the awesome inanity of a YEC/ID blog, and 2) to correct a bizarre claim: "Myers is the USA's leading voice for atheism." All that follows is equally wrong and foolish.

I gave a Nelson laugh to England a while back, for the creationist theme park that was going to be built there. I may have to take it back. It looks like the backers are a gang of confused prevaricators with no concrete plans, just a lot of wishful thinking on their part. I propose that they crawl…

It's all a bit too convoluted to make for snappy copy, but Dembski had been using Harvard/XVIVO's animation in his lectures without permission…and now it's clear from his Design of Life book that he did so in full awareness that he had no right to do so. Hey, I thought these Christian folk were…