pharyngula

It's for college students only, and first prize is $2000. Come on, students, you're used to churning out term papers, and that prize is substantial. The topic of the essay is free expression. The Campaign for Free Expression is a CFI initiative to focus efforts and attention on one of the most…

The vice-chancellor of the Australian Catholic University has compared atheists to Biblical plagues, which is quite nice of him. He seems to have forgotten that, in his mythology, those are usually sent by his god to chastise people and get them to change — is he going to ignore this divine message…

Last week, I described the lectures I attended at the Chicago 2009 Darwin meetings (Science Life also blogged the event). Two of the talks that were highlights of the meeting for me were the discussions of stickleback evolution by David Kingsley and oldfield mouse evolution by Hopi Hoekstra —…

(via RichardDawkins.net)

Tonight! On PBS' Nova! It's a promising new documentary on human evolution, Becoming Human. I'm going to try to watch it, but unfortunately, my glasses are broken, and I just got back from an eye exam, so my pupils are dilated and the world is a far too bright blur. I'll try to see the glowing…

The Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago has done an incredibly stupid thing. They invited Sunsara Taylor to give a talk on "Morality Without God"…and then disinvited her. The reasons weren't clear, other than that some people in the society disliked her politics — she's a communist — and the group…

One of our own, the godless Minnesotan Stephanie Zvan, is going under the knife for removal of some cancerous tissue today. If you're a useless fool, you might think entreating an imaginary and fickle deity would be the appropriate thing to do, but no…we know that is futile and insulting. However,…

It's another podcast, this time with Mother Jones magazine. I just finished cleaning up something like 400 spam comments made here, so it's with grim resignation that I notice the podcast already has a spam comment on it. Is there some reason my name should be associated with sanitary ball valves?

The Texas Freethought Convention will be taking place in San Antonio on 14 November. Y'all are going, right? A good turnout in Texas would be newsworthy, you know, and would shake up all those preconceptions about your state.

Apparently, if you die for Allah, the bullets ripping through your body will feel like angels' kisses, and the first thing that happens when you pop into heaven is that a horny black-eyed virgin (or two! Or 72!) will jump your bones. Although, actually, these homely losers for Mohammed don't…

I could only get two paragraphs into that sleazebag's reply in the debate about his Origin giveaway before I had to close the window and throw him away. A major concern of Genie Scott was that the copy of On the Origin of Species sent to her by my publisher was missing "four crucial chapters," as…

If you're in Maine, vote NO on 1. This is the law that attempts to repeal civil rights from gay couples. If you're in Washington state, vote YES on 71. This is a vote to preserve a law that gives legal protection to gay couples. Isn't it amazing that we even have to argue for equality, and that…

I am so disappointed. The little evangelical goober has a new book that promises to provide evidence of life after death — it's right in the title, Life After Death: The Evidence — but he doesn't seem to have, you know, actually provided any evidence. Newsweek has a summary of his arguments. The "…

Here's a nice video about pachycephalosaurs describing a little exercise in taxonomic consolidation.

People keep writing to me to complain that the goddamn stupid comment registration system doesn't work, so they can't comment. Yes, you can. Just ignore registration and fill in the blanks with name and email (which isn't shown), and you can comment. This is especially irritating since I turned off…

Since Jerry Coyne will never ever let me forget my modeling session with Ruse, I'll counter it a little with a photo of the sensible people from the University of Northern Iowa. Theresa Spradling, Peter Berendzen, Steve O'Kane, Marek Sliwinski, Neil Shubin (U. of Chicago) and Tiktaalik, Jim…

When I gave my talk at Minot, ND a few weeks ago, one of the things the Northwest Art Center (which hosted the talk) did was to have the audience evaluate me. This could be useful, I thought, but they actually mailed me copies of the forms, and…umm, no, they weren't. As I rather expected, the…

Jerry Coyne missed one: he lists a few annoying columnists in the Guardian, Andrew Brown and Madeleine Bunting, but I guess he didn't notice that Michael Ruse just posted a whine about Dawkins and other atheists. Well, a few of us: he mentions Dawkins, Dennett, Coyne, and me as the people who bring…

If you'd like to see two metazoans at once, there's another photo of Carl Buell and crow in this series.

You've probably all heard by now that Ray Comfort is coming out with his own butchered version of Darwin's Origin, with big chunks cut out of it, and a deeply stupid introduction slapped on. It's within his rights to do that, since the book is in the public domain now (as is, say, the KJV Bible),…

I'm feeling a bit jealous. A teacher was suspended for assigning a reading from one of those subversive, radical bloggers, and it wasn't me! It was Jonah Lehrer! The article was about the prevalence of homosexuality among animals. Apparently the thought that homosexuality might occur naturally,…

Don't faint. I met some people at this meeting. What did you think, I'd strip half-naked, paint myself blue, and start swinging a broadsword?

Man, philosophers sure take a long time to get to the point. OK, his outline: 1) development and differential entrenchment in evolution. 2) application of these principles to culture. 3) what new phenomena this theory can capture. Plunges into "thick, thin, and medium viscosity theories of culture…

Darwin didn't know the basic mechanisms of evolutionary change. Mechanism of inheritance was a black box. Darwin's last publication before his death was "on the dispersal of bivalves". Why are freshwater bivalves so homogeneous in morphology? Describes a beetle with a conch attached to its leg,…

How can I resist an opportunity to see Ruse gibbering on the stage? I'm curious to see whether he annoys or enlightens. It could go either way. He's not going to talk about evo-devo! OK, I'm already annoyed. Criticizes the infamous New Scientist cover, "Darwin Was Wrong"; received email from Paul…

Shubin had a tough act to follow, coming after Kingsley's great talk. I'm sure it will be good, though — last night I got a tour of his lab, saw the original Tiktaalik specimens and some new ones, and some of his work in progress (which I won't tell you about until it's published), so I'm confident…

Jerry Coyne has put up a few photos from the conference, including one of me hunched over my teeny-tiny note-taking laptop doing the exciting live-blogging thing. It doesn't look as glamorous as it actually is.

This talk should put me back in my comfort zone—developmental biology, evolution, and fish, with the stickleback story, one of the really cool model systems that have emerged to study those subjects. What is the molecular basis of evolutionary change in nature? How many genetic changes are required…

Darwin had problems with the fossil record that he explained as a result of imperfections. Modern paleo has corrected some of that with the discovery of many intermediates. Jablonski is going to talk about the fossil record as a laboratory for testing evolutionary hypotheses. Marine bivalves are…

Kimberly Daniels of the Christian Broadcasting Network has a warning for trick-or-treaters. "[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches," Daniels wrote. "I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of…