pharyngula

Getting in on the collectable card game fad, the New Humanist has published a set of religion cards. Here's a familiar one: Here we are: Unfortunately, while they have all those stats on the cards, they haven't given us any rules! I don't know how to play the game, other than to mix all the…

There is this strange site that has collected testimonials for the existence of god. If I were a believer, I'd be embarrassed at the painful lack of logic in these rationalizations. To the question "I believe in god because…", answers are non sequiturs like "because he is the creator" or "because…

A survey of scientists in Texas reveals that the vast majority reject all versions of creationism — only 2% give it any respect at all. This is in Texas, the state with Don McLeroy, creationist dentist, running the educational show. There is some dissonance there. What about that 2%? The survey…

Not to mention "Come" and "Pussy Control"…I knew that Prince had been getting weird, but the tale of his descent into Jehovah's Witlessness and his newfound contempt for homosexuals is really depressing. It's true. Religion poisons everything. I've still got a hard disk stuffed full of lubricious…

This is a spectacular video of the development of Clypeaster subdepressus, also called a sand dollar or sea biscuit. These are stunningly beautiful creatures (as are we all, of course), and it is so cool to see them changing here. The video starts with a little echinoderm porn — these animals are…

What I suspect is the most popular Intelligent Design site on the net (which is not saying much at all), uncommondescent.com, is getting a bit of a shake-up. Bill Dembski is stepping away from it, DaveScot is no longer a moderator, they're adding paypal donation buttons…well, OK. I'm feeling ho-hum…

Christine Huffard sent me a note alerting me to the publication of her latest paper, and she thought I might be interested because I "seem to like cephalopods". Hah. Well. I've noticed that Dr Huffard seems to have some small affection for the tentacled beasties herself. The paper follows on an…

I've never thought of Australia as a particularly strait-laced place — rather the opposite, actually — so why have they elected a government that wants to do something as stupid as putting an internet filter in place for the whole nation? They claim that they're out to block child pornography, the…

All of nature in its place By hand of the designer Comes our Charlie spins the worldFrom here to Asia Minor In between the PlatypusAnd perfect Aphrodite Charlie come with opposing thumbTo question the Almighty Over the river and over the sea Through holy storm and thunder Steer a course for a…

Everyone wants to know what I'm doing in Philly this week. Me, too! Here's everything I know so far. I'm flying in on Wednesday morning, 19 November. At 5pm, I'm giving a talk on science blogging at the Kelly Writers house on the U Penn campus. Thursday, 20 November, is the big event: Janet…

Here's another youtube bandwagon to jump on: I Am Darwin. Get in front of your webcam and talk about how Darwin has influenced you, concluding with "I am Darwin", and send the youtube link to Tom Barbalet. How many Darwins are out there, anyway?

It isn't so good for a fellow's sanity to get the full dose of my inbox all at once, rather than spread out over four days. I got my mail working again a little while ago, and just browsed through some of the crazy stuff you people send me. Be amused. A priest dared to ordain women. He's getting…

(via Effect Measure)

(Source and larger image)

In less than an hour, Atheists Talk radio will be on! This week, they're discussing how to talk to a christian proselytizer, and are also having a segment on fundamentalism. It sounds very depressing, but I'm sure it will be good. By the way, I am back home, and my laptop is still dead. I'm using…

Yes,. I'm still down for the count with a dead laptop, still only able to get on to the web in a limited way. Since I have just been reminded that I am behind on the bestowing of the Molly awards, it seems appropriate that I just turn it over to you all to make your nominations right here in this…

It has come to this. I can't get to my files on my laptop, my usual posting habits are disrupted, and site traffic is way down. I have to resort to a desperate ploy to regain your eyeballs. I know, it's shameless, but this kind of thing sells, so until I can get my gadgets fully restored, I'm going…

I'm in the pleasant town of Kearney, Nebraska to give a couple of talks at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and something tragic and horrible has happened. My laptop has died. The video card, she no longer generates the video. It makes it rather difficult to illustrate my talks with projected…

Watch Bill Donohue explode! I know, it's so easy to set him off, so it's not much of a present…maybe we should think of it as a reassuringly repetitive holiday tradition. This time he's outraged because humanists bought ad space on city buses. It prompts him to a tirade about atheists, Hitler, and…

The latest Tangled Bank is available at Submitted to a Candid World. Time to read!

The TED folks are sponsoring a disturbingly vacuous call for a Charter for Compassion, which they claim is an attempt to rescue religion from an aberrant fundamentalism by emphasizing the goodness of faith. I don't see it. What I see is a foolish whitewashing of religious history to claim that it…

This old-school public service announcement is warning of the dangers of smut—and for some reason it's illustrated with a many-tentacled cephalopod hovering above my state. Prophecy? There are more strange PSAs collected online.

You can enter a drawing for — this is really going to thrill you all — a copy of Expelled! Please do enter, I'd like to see someone rational win it, so they can use it as a coaster or something. I'll try to find a better contest next time. Anyone know of any drawings for a handful of dung?

It's annoying. I got another copy today of Joan Carroll Cruz's Eucharistic Miracles, a typical collection of credulous fables about crackers behaving oddly, and I don't need any more. This very silly book sent someone back about $16.50, plus postage, and it was a total waste since I already have…

That would be one simple suggestion I'd make in a letter to Obama. When did a god-walloping meathead get the idea he can make informed contributions to government?

Fresh off the British Humanist Associations's successful bus campaign, the American Humanist Association has fired up its own set of big signs on buses in the Washington DC area. Their message is "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake". Of course, CNN considers this another salvo in…

There is a maddeningly vague press release floating around, and I think everybody has sent me a link to it now. It contains a claim by some chemists that they have discovered a new organizing principle in evolution. A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins…

…he uses a Mac laptop. We have something in common! One curious fact at that link: Clinton sent a grand total of 2 emails while in the White House - which was two more than Bush. These people live in a strange and different world than mine.

They really had to twist the language to come up with this question: Do you think the majority of Americans are okay with this sort of 'change' -- an expansion of special protections for federal employees based on their sexual behavior? I think what they really mean is, "Do most Americans think it…

The bigotry is going too far. Now the Diocese of Bath and Wells has banned garden gnomes from their cemeteries. What are we to do with the poor wee buggers, then? Let them rot in the streets? I do appreciate the excuse given, though. A spokesman for the Diocese of Bath and Wells said: "There is no…