pharyngula

Perhaps you remember Karl — I ripped into an interview he did a while back. Well, "ripped into" is probably the wrong phrase — I pointed out several things I thought were quite good, and then tore up his sectarian defense of Christianity, his blind obeisance before the Christian bible, and his…

No, not that kind of host. Our scheduled host for the Tangled Bank had to back out due to time constraints. If anyone wants to volunteer to host it next Wednesday, let me know and I'll forward the entries to you. Also, who should get a Molly award for the month of July? Mention your choice(s) and…

The Michigan festival is apparently going to be showing BIll Maher's new movie, Religulous. I'd like to hear if it's any good, just to know how much I might suffer when I do go see it. And see it I will: anyone who gets Bill Donohue to start spluttering out threats of physical violence needs to be…

I was asked to contribute to Forbes Magazine package on commuting — never mind that I live across the street from my job, and "commuting" has become a trivial, alien concept — so I had to talk about animals that commute.

So how about this one: Should atheists be barred from public office? It's mostly going our way already, but would you believe a quarter of the votes so far say "yes"?

This story is in the news again, so I've reposted my description of the paper from 3½ years ago. This is an account of the discovery of soft organic tissue within a fossilized dinosaur bone; the thought at the time was that this could actually be preserved scraps of Tyrannosaurus flesh. There is…

It seems to be an evolving tradition around here to put descriptions of our medical adventures online. Janet contributes with a an account of her recent mammogram. I was disappointed — there are no pictures. Hey! I'm scheduled to have a colonoscopy late next month! Shall I…?

An organization of the Catholic leadership has now condemned my actions. This is sad news: it's clear that at least this tier of the Catholic hierarchy is as deranged as the wackaloons flooding my mailbox. We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible,…

The warm-up act for this program was a dinosaur program called "Jurassic Fight Club", which was loaded with CGI and lots of gratuitous razzle-dazzle — but I thought it was a hoot. It also had enthusiasatic scientists talking about how they figured out what had happened (although it does bug me that…

Would you believe the NY Times published an op-ed today…calling for closer monitoring of UFOs? I think it's intended seriously. It begins by suggesting that it — our neglect of will-o'-the-wisps and reflections of Venus — is a security loophole that terrorists might exploit, and then it gives…

It's the much anticipate first episode of a new series, Evolve - Eyes. They are one of evolution's most useful and prevalent inventions. Ninety five percent of living species are equipped with eyes and they exist in many different forms. Learn how the ancestors of jellyfish may have been the first…

I'd like to thank Megan for mentioning Colin Purrington's excellent essay on what you can do to improve the presentation of evolution in museums. It's positive, it's simple, it's stuff you can do on your very next museum visit.

Finally, after months of silence, my old server at pharyngula.org lives again. It turns out that all my head-desking was for nought — the reason it was offline is that it had been intentionally blocked on suspicion of harboring illicit p2p activity. They just forgot to mention it. Anyway, all…

The Birmingham city council has put up blocking software to lock out atheist websites, which is OK — they've got to crack that whip and keep their employees focused on the work at hand, of course. Unfortunately, they apparently aren't doing this to improve productivity, but simply to shut down a…

I approve of this article criticizing the dumbing down of science in museums. I think a lot of science museums need a good sharp kick in the pants, because they are going too far down the road of pandering to mass media sensations — our local museum is running a big show on the science of Star Wars…

What do you think of this "fossil"? It's supposed to be a human footprint with that of an Acrocanthosaurus on top of it, showing that dinosaurs walked the earth after human beings. Unfortunately, they both look ridiculously fake. The human print has toes like tubes and a wierdly dug-in big toe,…

So many people are asking where I got my "Knowledge is Power, Power Corrupts, Study Hard, Be Evil" t-shirt, as modeled here, and I wish I could help you, but I don't know where you could order your own. I can tell you exactly where I got it: in Detroit, at Moonbase ConFusion, from one of the many…

The Kaiser network is hosting a live webcast to discuss the influence of the blogosphere on health policy — the panel is tilted towards right wing bushites who prioritize money over health, so a more progressive contribution from the audience would be desirable. It's going to be on tomorrow,…

It's the Expelled DVD…and wouldn't you know it, it's already got a pile of positive reviews from creobots. If you've seen it, maybe you'd care to go give it an honest review? Don't forget to mention Expelled Exposed!

It is another mark of the incompetence of the ID movement that they actually hand out an award named after Casey Luskin. Pick the most ineffectual, uninformed, pathetic loser on the creationist side, and use his name to inspire the next generation of IDiots. It's actually amusingly appropriate. I…

And she has pictures to prove it! You can also download the podcast in which we both speak. Oh, and there's about 40 people who showed up at the Pharyngubrunch at Q. Cumbers who can testify that we all had a wonderful time.

People keep writing to me about this wretched scumbag who shot up a Unitarian church in Tennessee, killing two people there to watch a children's play. I don't know what happened, but despite it happening in a church, I don't get the impression that it's a consequence of a conflict between…

Christopher Hitchens was impressed by the existence of blind cave organisms, and wrote that they argue against a linear progression in evolution. He's quite right; creationism doesn't explain why their god tossed in to salamanders and fish a collection of complex developmental mechanisms that the…

This is supposed to be the Carnival of the Elitist Bastards, a celebration of excessive arrogance and bare-knuckle commentary, where smart-assed brutes with swords for tongues receive their rightful acknowledgment. I have received two dozen requests for inclusion in the rolls of the Elitist…

Sunday at 9am on Atheists Talk radio it's…me! And C.L. Hanson, too! Listen, and if you're local, come on down to Q.Cumbers restaurant at 11 for a godless brunch. We shall have fun!

I lived in Indiana for a short while long ago, and they didn't have any of these freethought groups in my neighborhood. It's good to see Hoosiers are wising up: FreeThought Fort Wayne is hosting Dr. Robert M. Price who will be speaking about his recent book, "Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's…

Good news! While I still get flooded with email every time Bill Donohue puts my address in a press release, I'm getting 90% fewer death threats! I think that maybe the example of Ms Kroll and her trollish husband has made people thinking twice before explicitly spelling out their gruesome plans, so…

The Tangled Bank was scheduled to appear on the Blue Collar Scientist this week, but as many of you already know, Jeff was diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma, and obviously he has more important issues to tend. So let's leap into some science right here right now! What's with all the birds?…

What happens when you put two of the dumbest right-wing pundits together on the air? Madness. On the July 23 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, guest Ben Stein, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's plan to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denver's…