pharyngula

The state of California now issues gender-neutral marriage licenses: they simply register the legal relationship of "Party A" and "Party B", where the relevant individuals fill out their actual names. That sounds reasonable and straightforward to me — it's a state-mandated contract. Wouldn't you…

Clemens Bittlinger wrote and performed a song that mildly rebuked the Pope … and you can guess what happened. Death threats! Wild accusations! Now he needs police protection! It's insane, but familiar. "When a newspaper prints a Mohammed cartoon, entire cities burn," read another. "But when the…

Just to clarify the ScienceBlogs 1,000,000 Comments contest: the millionth commenter didn't win anything. Everybody who makes a comment on Scienceblogs up to 30 September is automatically entered in a drawing to win a fabulous trip for two to New York. If you slept through the moment when the…

Michael Reiss has resigned from his position as the director of education of the Royal Society. Some of Professor Michael Reiss's recent comments, on the issue of creationism in schools, while speaking as the Royal Society's Director of Education, were open to misinterpretation. While it was not…

There is good cause to be aggravated by some of James Watson's recently expressed views, but he's still an interesting fellow who made a significant contribution to our understanding of biology; and E.O. Wilson, of course, is always cool. So here they are together in an interview with Charlie Rose…

The counter on the page is ticking upwards to the millionth scienceblogs comment — we're less than 50 comments away, so the winning submission might be right here on this thread — so it's a good time to remind you Minnesota region residents that Greg & PZ's Excellent Party will take place the…

It will get you a mention on a famous webcomic, that's what. I look good as an angel (not exactly).

Get ready for more fallout over Sarah Palin, who seems to be even crazier than I thought. There was an attempt to rehabilitate her from the accusations of pushing creationism recently, but the counterclaims got the facts all wrong. They claim that she only said that schools ought to "debate both…

I get all kinds of personal requests — requests to flog someone's blog, links to articles people think are really neat, that kind of thing. I don't mind at all. If you think I'd be interested, go ahead, drop me a line. But, you know, I would appreciate it if you at least had the courtesy to…

Yeah, this is one of the weird things about these blogs — you learn about trivial odd things that happen to total strangers far, far away, and you can't resist offering advice. Rowland dropped a beer bottle on his big toe, the nail is turning black, and it hurts, and now thousands of people know…

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You can now read McCain's position, as well as Obama's, on science policy at SEFORA and at Science Debate 2008. I tried to read them comparatively — the big differences that jumped out at me are that McCain wants to build lots and lots of nuclear power plants, and that McCain runs away from the…

I have just read the Conservapædia article on me. It is a marvel. Let me single out one jewel of misdirection among many. In January 2008, Myers participated in a debate with Discovery Institute fellow Geoffrey Simmons on KMMS. He was unable to counter criticisms of the fossil record, in particular…

The Pope has berated selfish secularists: Pope Benedict XVI condemned unbridled "pagan" passion for power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague Saturday as he led more than a quarter of a million Catholics in an outdoor Mass in Paris. But…this is from the Mr Fancy Pants in silk clothes…

So, the Church of England is considering a public apology for their denial of evolution — it's progress, I suppose, although CoE has never had the reputation of being particularly vicious towards evolution, and I'd be more impressed if the Baptists were asking forgiveness. Anyway, here's a poll:…

Deconversion stories are almost always entertaining, so you might enjoy Andy Welfie's. When you read about his Catholic home-school education, you'll be amazed he still has a functioning brain. How would you like to learn history from a book called Christ the King-Lord of History: A Catholic World…

Should creationism be taught in the classroom? It depends on what you mean by "taught". For instance, I recently lectured our freshman biology majors on the age of the earth. I first made up a list of facts and concepts that I wanted them to take away from the class: there were plain dry facts,…

The next edition of the Tangled Bank will be at Science Made Cool on Wednesday — it's time to send in those links!

I've never been to Burning Man despite being a bit of a dirty hippie myself, so I wonder if I should make the space cowboy pilgrimage next year: the theme is Evolution. Very cool, but it could also be very weird.

The resemblance is uncanny and hilarious. She'll be in great demand if a certain unqualified ignoramus stumbles into the White House. After you're done laughing, though, sober up to the horror.

Literally. Bill Mutranowski of Atheist Cartoons sent me these drawings. Now you know where I get my black sense of humor: every morning I get up to look at that face in the mirror, and a fellow has got to laugh. And they all look exactly like me! You can check out his collection of cartoons — this…

Let's make it a musical Sunday morning for the godless! Tristero, occasional commenter here and regular writer at Hullabaloo, is actually a professional composer in real life, and he has been busy. I had wanted to do a piece with a scientific subject for a very long time. Many years ago, someone in…

Either that or it's just plain obvious to anyone with their eyes open. This is Frank Zappa in 1988, singing about the Big Lies: You can find the lyrics here.

Shortly, Atheists Talk radio will be on the air with a conversation with Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. They'll be discussing the upcoming national convention in Chicago. The show will air at 9 AM Sunday, Minneapolis time. Since all you foreigners always complain about…

Andy Schlafly, the blinkered pudyanker at Conservapædia, has been on an impotent crusade against Richard Lenski for some time, and to his own routine self-humiliation. A while back, Schlafly wrote a petty, silly demand to Lenski that he turn over all of his data to the Conservapædians…Lenski wrote…

Now you can find out what name Sarah Palin would have given you! (Disclaimer: the one and only thing I like at all about Palin is that she gave her kids unusual names.)

Ben Goldacre, of the Bad Science weblog, has had a lawsuit hanging over his head for the past year. Ben regularly excoriates alt-medicine quacks, and one of his targets was a pill-peddler named Matthias Rath who got rich off pointless vitamin supplements with exaggerated claims of effectiveness,…

I'm always tickled and disturbed when I hear news about JZ Knight. Knight, as some of you may already know, is a New Age charlatan who claims to "channel" a 35,000 year old Atlantean warrior, and dispenses ludicrous advice in a growly voice and gets paid big bucks by the gullible. However, now one…

Once again, the Daily Show punctures the pointless vapidities uttered by politicians — in this case, the phrase "small town values" that was flung about with fervent abandon at the Republican convention, by lots of people who seem to have never been anywhere near a small town. I live in a small…

Ay yi yi Minnesota's very own Michele Bachmann starts praising science, but I don't think that word means what she thinks it means, since she concludes with "science ultimately conforms to god's truth". Pity us. This raving fruitbat is our 6th district congresscreature.