pharyngula

You know how we all love to screw up online polls … here's another one. Scroll down to just below "What others are saying", on the left, where the poll question is: Do you think the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system? "Yes" is currently leading by about 3:1. If…

I like it, anyway.

Mars seems to bring out the kooks. I was pointed to the bizarre Xenotech "research" site, which consists entirely of the delusional fantasies of Sir Charles W. Shults III, Scientist (yes, that's what he calls himself). His research program? He gleans photographs from Mars probes for random shapes…

KBSU is the campus television station for Bemidji State University, and apparently they've been broadcasting crap lately — several hours a day have been dedicated to episodes of this feeble series of videos called "Does God Exist?". It's awful. It's basically some self-proclaimed Christian standing…

Christianity is a creepy death cult. Worshipping a rotting corpse is revolting. The exhumed body of Padre Pio, a saint considered a miracle worker by his devotees, attracted thousands of pilgrims on Thursday when it went on display 40 years after his death. … His face was reconstructed with a…

The recommendation I noted before has been officially and finally followed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board: the Institute for Creation Research's application to offer an online master's degree program in creationist bullshit has been rejected. Bravo! The ICR has said they will…

B asked me the other day to mention his dad's blog sometime, so of course I will do so. Observe the Banana. It's part of the tapestry here in little ol' Morris. Aries: Look. The reason for your headaches is all the head-butting you do. Switch it up a little, and next time life throws one of those…

Monday, 12 May, 2:30pm. This is your chance. The Residence Hall Association on my campus is having a fundraiser to send some members to a national conference, so they'll be selling pies … to throw at faculty. I'll be standing there for that half-hour, so students and anyone else who wants revenge…

Mark Mathis does not come off as a nice man in interviews. You may have listened to the SciAm interview, a truly painful experience in which he made claims about evolution and then backtracked when confronted with his mistakes…and admitted that he knew nothing about the subject. He's done it again…

Let's catch up with the carnivals: I and the Bird #73 Carnival of the Fraudless Carnival of the Liberals #63 Skeptics' Circle #85 We've got a new Tangled Bank at Dammit Jim! next Wednesday — send those links in to me or host@tangledbank.net. Libra: There's a choice to be made. You can live fast…

I mentioned this new religious license plate in Florida before, and now it looks like it's closer to reality. I don't object strongly to it — it's optional, and people who want it have to pay an extra $25 — but some of the arguments against it are embarrassing, and the arguments for it are even…

…Republican Representative John Duncan of Tennessee. Confronted with a vast amount of evidence provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the US Institute of Medicine , the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American…

Cancel your trip to Africa! There are sorcerors stealing…personal items. Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Unfortunately, it's not…

It's 2008 — I think astrology has been dead for a few centuries. But OK, it's been shown to be worthless again. A large study of thousands of "time twins" — people who were born at the same time — has concluded that there are no correspondence between them. Researchers looked at more than 100…

Well, at least you might think this was my mission statement if you were an incoherent, demented kook, anyway. (Hat tip to Bay of Fundie)

The things you learn from crazy clerics… A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when…

You have rarely seen me say this, but…Texas did a good thing. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has voted against, I repeat, against approving the application from the Institute for Creation "Research" to issue degrees in Texas. The ICR will not be handing out Master of Science degrees…

I don't say the pledge of allegiance; I actually find it rather offensive that I'm expected to give a loyalty oath to a political entity if I attend a school board meeting. So I was a little sympathetic to this story of a student was kicked out of school for refusing to recite the Pledge of…

Uh-oh. They pissed off Yoko Ono. Yoko Ono, son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Julian Lennon, John Lennon's son from his first marriage, along with privately held publisher EMI Blackwood Music Inc filed suit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan seeking to bar the filmmakers and their distributors from…

Paul Verhoeven is making a movie that claims Mary, the mother of Jesus, was raped by a Roman soldier. There is no historical evidence for Jesus, let alone the nature of his conception, so this is pure fictional speculation, from a director known more for over-the-top, superficial flamboyance than…

The title gets the principal objection of any creationist out of the way: yes, this population of Podarcis sicula is still made up of lizards, but they're a different kind of lizard now. Evolution works. Here's the story: in 1971, scientists started an experiment. They took 5 male lizards and 5…

There's an ugly case brewing in Ohio. A popular middle school science teacher has been ordered to remove his copy of the bible from his desk. On the face of it, I think letting a teacher have a bible on his desk or on his person should not be a problem — it's nothing but a personal tchotchke, and…

What am I supposed to do when all three candidates for the presidency turn out to be credulous, anti-science ignoramuses? Obama thinks there's a link between vaccines and autism, and now Hillary has jumped off the cliff with him. They're both nuts, or at least suck-ups to the kooks. Orac, of course…

A while back, I pulled down a pdf of something called the "Leader's Guide" from the Expelled website. I was agog. It's flat-out fundamentalist Christian creationism, through and through — quote-mines, sermon suggestions, etc., etc., etc. I was thinking that here's another nail in the coffin for the…

Michael Korn, the crazed creationist from Colorado who has threatened evolutionists with physical harm, keeps sending me email. His latest is an enumeration of the sins of evolutionists as exhibited in the movie, Expelled, which seems to have him quite worked up. He ranks us by evil; I'm #2*. I'm…

Here's a generous idea: if you join the NCSE, this blogger will match your donation, up to a total of $500. If you aren't already a member, take this as further incentive.

Who needs the scientific method when you've got this protocol?

I think I've said just about everything I can about that contemptible, dishonest propaganda movie starring Ben Stein, so I've been fairly quiet about it lately. It will run its short course in the theaters, and the main result will be that we'll get a few more creationists who, in addition to being…

I think this is my favorite newspaper headline yet: Priest attached to party balloons vanishes in Brazil. Now you know what to bring to the next party at your local church: a lawn chair, a bunch of balloons, and a helium tank. I am imagining a day when every priest in the world stands smiling…

Nothing to celebrate there, but you could instead say happy birthday to ERV.