pharyngula

Christopher Maloney, N.D.*, is rightfully complaining about the fact that he has received rude email, and also implies that he may have received harassing phone calls. He's a sensitive soul, apparently — hundreds of email messages is nothing, I get that much every few hours — but if you are sending…

That quack, Christopher Maloney, has written to me now…with a nice little edge of hysteria and paranoia. Let the witch trials begin! Michael Hawkins and Rev. Myers presiding Dear "Reverend" PZ Meyers, How fitting that, three hundred years later, the witch trials continue. If you recall, it was…

The infinite thread keeps growing, and its spores populate yet another post. The end of that video is a little disturbing. Is that our fate? Once you've done here, Pharyngula will collapse into rotting mulch for maggots, and the spores will move on to colonize other blogs?

We've lost one of the lively voices of freethought. HELEN KAGIN died early this evening following complications from cancer surgery. She was 76. Kagin was a heroine and activist in the Atheist movement. Along with her husband, attorney Edwin Kagin, she co-founded Camp Quest, a summer camp for…

It reminds me of something, I can't quite recall what. Salix caprea pollen grain (via National Geographic)

I know from experience how hard it is to raise kids — they tend to be willful and are always trying to think for themselves, and you know we can't have that. But now there's an answer, a book titled To Train Up a Child, which provides all kinds of useful tips on how to bring up children respectful…

On a trip to the grocery store this evening, I kept running into little old ladies with these hideous ash smudges on their foreheads — I had to resist the urge to pull out a hankie, spit on it, and clean them up. I was wondering what was going on, but then discovered what was up: They were honoring…

Maloney is a naturopath in the state of Maine, where quacks like him get to call themselves "doctors". These so-called "doctors" get to make recommendations like this, in which he disparages standard flu vaccines and suggests these useless prescriptions: Parents waiting for vaccinations can provide…

Some of you may recall the Bigfoot footage I posted a while back — now the full, unedited, complete version without the blurry effects is available. Note that the language here may be NSFW, unless you're working as a longshoreman.

I've got my hands on a strange paper by D Kanduc: "Protein information content resides in rare peptide segments". Here's the abstract. Discovering the informational rule(s) underlying structure-function relationships in the protein language is at the core of biology. Current theories have proven…

The Catholic Church is getting desperate. All this evidence is turning up of priests physically and sexually abusing young people in their care, and of the church administration being more concerned with protecting pedophile priests and the reputation of their organization than protecting children…

It's just sad. The arguments the apologists for religion make seem to be getting more and more pathetic, and more and more unconvincing. There is going to be a lecture, announced in the Times Higher Education supplement, by someone trying to reconcile science and religion in the history of the…

I think I'm the main course. Anyway, Bride of Shrek is trying to organize the seating for the dinner in Melbourne on the 13th of March, and the plan is for the Pharyngula horde to sit together (I think it is so our uprising and assault will be more effective), and in order to do that, the she needs…

Hard to believe, but this medieval nonsense is still going on. Poland has more than 100 professional exorcists, and they recently met in a conference. Congress participants argued that demonology lessons should be treated more seriously in seminaries and that ordinary people, too, would benefit…

And she may be fired for it. Hussain is an eighth grade science teacher in North Carolina who was getting harrassed by bible-thumping students in her classroom — harrassment that was apparently encouraged by their red-necked ignorant parents. The kids were giving her Bibles and Jesus postcards and…

Without hesitation, I can tell you who the most contemptible, repulsive creationist I know is: he tops even Ray Comfort and Ken Ham in the pantheon of creationist liars for Jesus. It's the otherwise negligible Sal Cordova, a whiny little nobody with no talent and no reputation other than his…

Another thread closed, and another springs into life.

Next month, I'm going to be attending the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, and originally, I had planned to make this a grand tour and was even thinking about a side trip to New Zealand. Plans have changed — one of the consequences of my long journey to California and Ireland, lovely as it…

Teach the controversy. (via Bizarro)

Shorter Ken Ham: Other museums have dinosaur models with saddles, so why does everyone pick on my "museum"?. Ham seems to have been scrambling to save face by finding a few other places that put out exhibits of dinosaurs with saddles, but he, as usual, misses the point. Yes, other places will…

I'm sad now. Jen has a video of Greta Christina talking about atheism and sexuality, and for several days I've been trying to get it to work…and no matter what I do, it won't play. Greta is great, though, so it's almost certainly an excellent talk…maybe it will work for you. Greta Christina on…

Sometimes she sends me a couple of pictures, and sometimes I can't decide between them.

Hey, I think that's me in this cartoon! It's a pretty good lesson, too.

You all know that if you masturbate, you will become feeble, blind, and incontinent, right? Well, at least according to folk wisdom shouted at you by grandmas and grandpas (who, I will assure you, masturbated: it's a nearly universal practice.) As it turns out, a compendium of Islamic thought on…

Uh-oh, the libertarians are getting noisy again. I have not expressed myself clearly enough, I guess. I will remind them all of my previous commentary about anti-environmentalists and libertarian nut-cases, and I will also cite with great approval a passage from one of my favorite authors. It has…

Kevin Smith, the writer and raconteur, was recently booted from a plane for being too fat. He's a big guy, but not so big he doesn't fit in an airplane seat — so this looks like some weird, nasty, rude policy being pushed by Southwest Airlines. It's an injustice, but it's also hilarious, because…

Modern technology can make everything better.

Link to article discussing the importance of the holiday. Amusing cartoon to lighten the mood. Standard video of cute animals gamboling affectionately below the fold: Cheerful sign-off and encouragement to enjoy the holiday!

I guess that giant platter of cheese called Megashark vs. Giant Octopus was not enough — now the SyFy Channel has commissioned a new project, Sharktopus. I don't want to know any more. The worst part is…yes, I will watch it.