pharyngula

I had to read it just for the title alone: "Harmonic Convergence in the Love Songs of the Dengue Vector Mosquito". It's got romance, it's got harmony, it's got singing, and best of all, it has that delicious dramatic tension of being all about biting insects known to carry a nasty disease. Even in…

Isn't that beautiful? It's an ancient footprint in some lumpy rocks in Kenya…but it is 1½ million years old. It comes from the Koobi Fora formation, familiar to anyone who follows human evolution, and is probably from Homo ergaster. There aren't a lot of them; one series of three hominin trails…

We can all take lessons from a certain cynical teddy bear.

Cephalopod solidarity! (via Andre Seale)

Now this is just getting silly. An Islamic theologian has declared that using ethanol as a fuel is sinful. As if the debate around using ethanol to fuel cars weren't already complicated enough, now an Islamic scholar has suggested that driving or even riding in a vehicle fueled by ethanol could be…

An enthusiastic cephalopod jumped the gun on their plan for world domination. An octopus today managed to pry loose a water-control valve at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, flooding the facility with more than 200 gallons of saltwater. If you're living somewhere below sea level, watch out.

The UN has passed an absurd resolution that tries to make defamation of religion illegal. No more blasphemy for us! At least a Canadian spokesman has the right idea. "Canada rejects the basic premise that religions have rights; human rights belong to human beings," said Catherine Loubier,…

The media is getting another science story wrong. I keep seeing this discovery of an array of fossil placoderms as revealing the origins of sex, and that's not right. Sex is much, much older, and arose in single-celled organisms. Come on, plants reproduce sexually. A fish is so far removed from…

After all, he says nice things about me and not-so-nice things about Ben Stein.

I was wondering why Harun Yahya kept sending me new copies of his remarkably tedious tome, the Atlas of Creation. It turns out he's been busy expunging it of embarrassing errors, like the infamous caddis fly fishing lure presented as an example of a modern insect. Several of these revisions have…

Anytime something wrong happens, there is a Christian who will blame it on atheism and evolution. The latest is the case of the foolish woman who kept an adult chimpanzee as a pet, and got badly mauled for her trouble. This, of course, is Charles Darwin's fault. How is it that we live in a culture…

It was with some trepidation that I learned Ken Miller was on "This I Believe"…but hey, it's actually good stuff that I agree with. Go ahead, even us delicate little atheists can listen to it.

I don't understand people who say they're spiritual but not religious. Isn't that just being superstitious without the benefits of community and ritual?

Is there some new requirement in the Republican party that potential candidates for the presidency must be against basic science? Bobby Jindal gave a rebuttal to one of Obama's recent speeches, and what does he do? Criticizes the investment of "$140 million for something called 'volcano…

We had a pointless poll post a while back where I pointed you at a silly site that asked what was the best evidence for the afterlife — and you people triumphantly emphasized that there was no evidence. Amusingly, the guy who runs the site is now whining about the attention we gave him. While I…

Those wacky, madcap Germans are promoting a little change in their set of national holidays: some people want to change the Feast of the Ascension, celebrating the day Jesus supposedly floated up into heaven, to…Evolution Day! As you might guess, I think this is an excellent idea. There is a…

I might as well recommend this excellent rebuttal to Weiss and Nisbet. Weiss wrote an op-ed which was basically a baseless argument that these uppity New Atheists should sit down and shut up because Charles Darwin "knew there is plenty of room for God at the top". It's a stupid argument on many…

I know! It's shocking! But then I knew all along that he was smarter than his flirtation with the abhorrent insanity of Nisbetian framing would suggest. He has an article summarizing the George Will nonsense — where Will promoted outright falsehoods in support of his global warming denialism — and…

Oh, boy! Ray Comfort and Bill Donohue are arguing! The issue is evolution, of course; Comfort says that Christianity and evolution are incompatible, and Donohue is claiming otherwise. They deserve each other, and I don't really care what either of them says, but I have to point out one glaring…

Jim Kakalios says the new Watchmen movie is going to be good…and we can trust Jim.

I don't know how he can abide them, but August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists will be appearing on KKMS talk radio, the Twin Cities refuge for fundagelical reality-deniers. Listen in at 5pm Central (in about two hours), if you can bear it. I can't.

They gave a gang of Discovery Institute hacks a free run to publish their delusions (bad). Then, under protest, they gave Jerry Coyne an opportunity to rebut (good). Now, after all that, they add another, final word to the whole mess…and guess who they published? Phillip Skell. Perhaps you newbies…

Ray Comfort desperately wants to debate Richard Dawkins, and has even offered to pay him $10,000. Dawkins has a counter-offer: he'll do it for $100,000, to be donated to the RDF. Comfort has now upped the ante to $20,000. It's not enough. I would encourage teams of creationist philanthropists to…

Do I really need to see these old reminders that some of our politicians are idiots? Here's a quote from Governor Mark Sanford of South* Carolina: Well I think that it's just, and science is more and more documenting this, is that there are real "chinks" in the armor of evolution being the only way…

We atheists are immoral. Your morality is 0% in line with that of the bible.   Damn you heathen! Your book learnin' has done warped your mind. You shall not be invited next time I sacrifice a goat.Do You Have Biblical Morals?Take More Quizzes

This is a photograph of Macropinna microstoma, also called barreleyes. It has a very peculiar optical arrangement. When you first look at this photo, you may think the two small ovals above and behind its mouth are the eyes, and that it looks rather sad…wrong. Those are its nostrils. The eyes are…

I guess I'm out then. Except…this is the internet! We can all pretend to be Young Australian Skeptics, and no one will know any better! "G'day, mate, doesn't Jess Origliasso have lovely bosoms?" (← my cunning imitation of a young Australian)

Sometimes, they just want to help me out. You must try this before you die. Why does this happen? Maybe you can figure it out? I have Discovered that if you lay perfectly level on a firm mattress,with no pillow. Then relax and let gravity push you flat. Do this for 3 hours day/night. you can only…

Normally, I leave the boring clouds of gas and emptiness to Phil, but this Hubble photo of the Carina Nebula actually has something cool. Now I don't want to hear anything from any of you about pareidolia. If the loons get their Virgin Mary in burnt pancakes, I want my Cosmic Cephalopod in…