pharyngula

Jerry Bergman is a fairly typical creationist: he's a loon, and he's dishonest. I debated him once to an utterly ineffectual conclusion, and it was like having an argument with a rabid squirrel — he makes no sense, he splutters out nutty fragments of angry rhetoric, and he's ultimately of no…

The fetal test has come and gone with a quiet flop. They didn't actually have a 5-week pregnant woman to test, and it failed to work for a 9 week fetus. Two young mothers were given ultrasounds in a packed room at the Statehouse as part of a House committee meeting Wednesday. The heartbeat of a…

This is the new campaign from CFI. Positive Atheism FTW!

Look, when I said this, my point was that it was absurd to use these tactics of asking embryos to testify. But even if they do get a nice image of a curled, fishlike embryo that is maybe a tenth as sharp as the worst images of zebrafish embryos that I see in my low-power dissecting scope, so what?…

Below is a news clip from our local Fox station. I feel very, very sorry for Leif Reffsgaard, who is being rewarded with a lot of attention for being gullible. He's a third grader who claims to be able to heal his friends by waving his hands around. Third-Grader Heals Friends with Qigong:…

xkcd digs into cladistics. Unfortunately, his cladogram is wrong. Mammals should also be a subset of the reptiles, so the herpetologists should be demanding that all other amniotes be absorbed into their more inclusive field of tetrapod biology. At least, until the ichthyologists show up and…

This is a 5-week-old human fetus. It's an awesomely cool period of development. Organogenesis is well under way, segmentation is completely, limb buds are forming. The heart is beating, which is neat, but then you have to keep in mind that you can tease a heart apart into individual cells in a…

I may need to check myself into a mental hospital, threadlians, because so help me, I like Lady Gaga, even the weird pretentious gynecological bits at the beginning of this video. Maybe especially the freaky alien gynecology. If you're not going to dance, I at least hope you're commenting in your…

You have two jobs to do: In the 2011 census, be sure to tick "no religion" on the form. Don't play games, don't compromise, don't even call yourself a "secular humanist" — you're just diluting the influence of the godless. Sign this petition to stop Rupert Murdoch. He's like a parasitic…

I agreed with Doctorow that the recent shutdown of the Westboro loons was a stunt by WBC itself. Now Anonymous has spoken out in an interview with Shirley Phelps-Roper denying any involvement. Here's the hilarious bit, though: midway through the interview, after Phelps-Roper's prolonged ranting and…

People keep asking me this question after the creationist event here in town — Mortenson spoke about how creationism is so much more egalitarian than evolution, and how the Bible talks about these wonderful things people did in the book of Genesis, like Cain going out and founding a whole city, by…

I predict it will quickly vanish from public attention. The University of Arizona is creating something called the National Institute for Civil Discourse. Just the title makes me want to gag. Announced just last week by the University of Arizona, the new civility institute will have as honorary…

But it's not enough on its own. Case in point: the Raelians have put up a sign in Las Vegas. It does have a helpful statement from a Raelian spokesman to help you sort the rationalists from clowns, if the flying saucer in the billboard isn't enough for you. If you drive the freeway between Vegas…

It's another frantically busy day, so I don't have time to give you the full run-down on the misleading nonsense Terry Mortenson from Answers in Genesis gave last night, but I do want to give one example. In one section of his talk, he referenced an article in Scientific American which discussed a…

I sat through another horrid performance from our creationist visitor, Terry Mortenson. He lied and lied and lied for a couple of hours again, and once again refused to answer questions. Once again, I twittered my way through it. My student, Kele Cable, was also there, and he has a blog entry where…

You can't possibly be surprised at this turn of events anymore. The Reverend Grant Storms, a Christian fundamentalist pastor known for his campaigns against New Orleans' gay Southern Decadence festival, has been arrested for masturbating in a public park in front of children. But wait! Let's let…

A UK court has decided that a pair of homophobic Pentacostal Christians should not be allowed to be foster parents to children, because they openly condemn homosexuality. I think it's a shame that these deluded bigots won't get an opportunity to learn that gay kids can be good people, too, but it's…

Heed ZDoggMD, all you denizens of the endless thread, and vaccinate! (Current totals: 11,946 entries with 1,294,946 comments.)

Imagine getting your morning cup of coffee and discovering this nonsense splattered all over it. Since gods don't exist, that's far more depressingly nihilist than anything any Gnu Atheist ever wrote — we prefer to find meaning in what is real. (via Toni Marano)

Pay special attention to those orange spots on the anal fin. Astatotilapia burtoni (via Kevin Bauman) Those spots help this fish get oral sex. As is the case in many fish species, the sight of a brightly coloured male somehow triggers females with ripe eggs to start releasing them. But in cichlids…

I just suffered through a few hours of Terry Mortenson, Answers in Genesis stooge, babbling and lying on stage here in Morris. I'm going to recuperate for a while with a nice cup of tea and a little light reading, so don't expect me to post on it now. You can browse my twitter feed for the short…

Oh, dear…today is the day the clown from Answers in Genesis is speaking at the elementary school in Morris. I guess I'll be going, even though Terry Mortenson is a goats-on-fire flaming moron. Here he is in all of his pursed-lipped pretentious glory. Anyway, I'll be attending his 6:00 lecture — "…

As we've learned watching the Rethuglicans lately, the assault on abortion rights is only the first step — they also want to shut down the wickedness that is contraception. But they're not going to stop there, oh no! If you want a peek at our theocratic future, read this incredibly long-winded…

This is an experiment. Take care, readers, you might experience symptoms of distress and nausea if you actually watch this video. Wow. "Quantum". "Vibrational frequencies". "Higher planes". "Vibratory medicine". Attractive young lady waving her hands over people. Did you know Melissa Hocking has…

It's all very confusing, and I'm not quite sure how they managed all these years…all those Irish children must have been the product of some amusing and peculiar accidents. At least the quacks are profiting from the confusion — here, for instance, is a mysterious bottle of an over-the-counter "…

This country recently managed to pass a rather lame compromise on health care: there is now a mandate that requires everyone to have health insurance, even if it is from a hodge-podge of insurance companies, with the intent of fairly distributing the expense. Unfortunately, one group got singled…

There are some useful tells. My favorite has the been the classic quotemine, where creationists quote one sentence of Darwin's — "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the…

Finally, they've kicked that sappy Spielberg off the property and are redoing ET with the edge it should have had in the first place, and the endlessly patient thread will be waiting in line. (Current totals: 11,936 entries with 1,292,769 comments.)

I told you I was bad and neglectful, but we're getting there. The Molly award for December 2010 goes to a long-dead Seleucid monarch, Antiochus Epiphanes…on the condition that he promises to leave Egypt alone, and occupy himself with conquering trolls on Pharyngula instead. Now you get to leave…

This happens every year about this time: that first month of the new semester is such total chaos that I let stuff on the blog slide…like failing to take care of the Molly stuff. Now I'm going to catch up quickly. The first order of business: I proposed a Molly of the Year award, and you people…