pharyngula

Now you know who not to vote for: Bill Brady. Brady favors teaching creationism in the schools. It's always helpful when the ninnies declare themselves like that. Although, it's also true that he declares himself a Republican, which nowadays is also grounds for voting against him. However, I also…

Spilanthes oleracea

Sometimes…sometimes you just want to kick some ass. And the only thing holding you back is the unpleasant task afterward of having to scrub your boots. This is an actual article from USA Today's "Faith and Reason" section, which doesn't seem to have much reason behind it. It's by Cathy Lynn…

Hey, don't miss this: Shermer will be speaking at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities next week, 14 October, at 7pm in Willey 175 (West Bank). There is a charge, but it's cheap: $1 CASH members (advance sale only), $2 advance tickets through CASH tabling or at general meetings, and $4 at the…

This is the same ad I posted for a position in our biology department the other day, with one very significant difference — I had used the copy we'd put together before we got absolute final approval to fill the position, and once it was locked down, we changed the date. Notice: We start screening…

By now, everyone knows that the hateful gerontocracy of the Mormon Church was on proud display by Boyd Packer. Besides the message of ignorance he's passing on, this video also reveals something we became familiar with in our years of living in Utah: the leadership of the church is really a…

But we are amused, and the helpless fury of the believers only makes us laugh harder. Read this account of an angry pastor who fired off indignant emails to a humor site protesting this sacrilegious image: The editors respond by letting him know that they've got more, and sending him links. Mr…

Some people are in the news that I've covered before. Let's do a quick update. We've encountered that very silly man, Barney Zwartz, a few times before. He's an Australian columnist who whined incompetently about the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, and thinks "militant atheist" literally…

Don't worry. I'm just trying to confuse the participants in the very, very long thread. (Current totals: 11,115 entries with 1,143,704 comments.)

You already know I dislike religion; it's a dreadful tool for distorting human values. I'm also an opponent of sexist socialization that short-changes women, in particular. How about if we combine both? Behold, My Princess Bible(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), a book you can give to your little girl to…

The head of the Pontificia Academia Pro Vita, the specifically crazy anti-choice arm of the Catholic Church, has already issued a statement about the Nobel Prize awarded to an IVF pioneer. He's against it, of course. Among his peculiar complaints is the objection that it "didn't treat the…

I would never have guessed this one. The Nobel Prize in Medicine has gone to Robert G. Edwards for his pioneering work in in vitro fertilization. It surprises me because it's almost ancient history — he is being rewarded for work done over 30 years ago. It's also very applied research — this was…

Bravo! A blog about language gets, as you might expect, a few fairly repetitive responses to common issues, and Language Log gets lots of unimaginative comments about ending a sentence with a preposition…and they've reached the limits of their patience. Unable to bear any longer the tedious work of…

Dixon, you may recall, was the fellow who mention on twitter that he was hurrying past the Church of Scientology "in case the stupid rubs off", and for his casual contempt was rewarded with a lawsuit from the ever-sensitive Scientologists. It didn't work. Dixon has been cleared. I think that in his…

Eric Dejaeger is a Catholic priest and pedophile who benefited greatly from church policy: when it was learned that he was a child-raping monster, the Catholic Church did the upright, moral thing and kept him on as a priest, but simply shipped him off to the Canadian north where he'd only be raping…

One more "he's such a teddy bear" and I am going to set my beard on fire and howl. I met the similarly ferocious AJ Milne in Montreal, and he has written the first honest account of my appearance. I assure you, the man was terrifying. Came into the place on this huge Harley belching clouds of black…

Rana sphenocephala utricularia (via George Papabeis)

Many people in the godless community know and detest Dennis Markuze AKA David Mabus, the crazy spammer who repetitively and obsessively sends email and posts on forums and comments on blogs, with lunatic accusations, deranged claims of prophecy, threats, and random Depeche Mode videos. Others know…

Some of you have already noticed the big banner in the left sidebar (those of you who have adblock installed probably haven't) announcing that we're participating in DonorsChoose this year, the charity that takes your donation and directly hands them over to specific projects teachers have proposed…

The thread of bloat has swollen to horrendous dimensions while I'm distracted! Must quickly throw in a new sponge to soak up the torrent. Here, just to keep you occupied…this is some sketch comedy produced by a couple of students here at UMM. It's a weird premise — it's about a couple of students…

A few articles published in the newspapers today have hit me right in a few sore spots, making me crankier than usual and compelling me to write a few new rules for science journalists. Pay attention. This first story is titled Male infertility gene discovered. It does an OK job of describing…

Grimpoteuthis (via NOAA)

Today is the official Blasphemy Day, and I hope you all had a good time. I'm afraid I didn't do anything in particular, because every day is Blasphemy Day for me, and I'm a walking talking affront to god. CFI had a video contest and announced the winners today. Here's the top choice in their…

One of the ads on this site is serving up something nasty, apparently. I have informed the masters of the machine through a spiffy new fast alert system Scienceblogs recently installed. Now we wait to see if we've also got a spiffy fast response system.

The Pew Forum surveyed Americans on their knowledge of religion, and discovered that the group most generally knowledgeable about world religions was…those unshriven hellbound godless folk. This does not sit well with many believers, who have long preferred to relegate atheists to a hell of total…

The Coalition on the Academic Workforce is running a survey to gather data on the working conditions of what they're calling contingent faculty: people who teach at the college level but aren't tenured or tenure track. If you're one of those unfortunate slaves of the system, help them out and take…

So I've just told you to avoid underestimating college students, but I guess you shouldn't do the same with Republicans, especially Breitbart-style Republicans. Their latest embarrassment is yet another piece of work from James O'Keefe, the young mastermind who dressed up as a pimp and dishonestly…

As I've mentioned, I have my upper division classes write openly on the web about the subject of the course. It's good practice for being comfortable with discussing the world of ideas outside this little sheltered realm of academia, but I've always had one reservation: the internet is a cruel…

(via National Geographic)

It would be a mercy. George Lucas is preparing another release of all of his Star Wars movies, after yet again tweaking them. The new versions will be in…cheesy post-processed pseudo-3-D. When the first one was released back in 1977 it was phenomenal — a pulpy space opera with dialogue that had the…