pharyngula

Researchers compared levels of aggression (measured in a test where participants get to blast each other with loud noises) between students at Brigham Young University (99% True Believers) and Vrije University in Amsterdam (50% God-Wallopers). They also compared aggression after reading a quotation…

The other day, the Time magazine blog strongly criticized the DI's list of irrelevant, unqualified scientists who "dissent from Darwin", and singled out a surgeon, Michael Egnor, as an example of the foolishness of the people who support the DI. I took apart some of Egnor's claims, that…

The early word is that he didn't say a word about Intelligent Design creationism or evolution, which is fine with me…but instead gave the standard Rethuglican "rah-rah for the war!" speech, which is even worse. He's all in favor of the "surge", and is predicting we'll know how it's all going to…

Sometimes it's the little things that are the most revealing, that expose the bankruptcy of an idea. For instance, this story from a Florida school where the principal and teachers cast a magic spell. It had been a hard Friday at Brooksville Elementary School, with lots of misbehavior that didn't…

We knew this was going to happen. Our Crazy Jesus Lady now claims to have the inside scoop on the Iranian secret plan to take over the northern half of Iraq, name it the Iraq State of Islam, and use it for a terrorist training ground. She didn't say how she knows this. My money is on some god…

Greg Laden reminds me that today's Science Friday will feature Ed Humes and Randy Olson talking about educating people about evolution—tune in!

Another week, another collection of carnivals, and important calls for submissions to more carnivals. Carnival of Mathematics #2 Disability Carnival #9 Friday Ark #127 Carnival of Education #107 I and the Bird #43 Send me links! The Circus of the Spineless #18 is going to be right here…

Tsk, tsk, Zeno…you've got a lot to learn about blackmail. First of all, you threaten to release the photos to the press and family and then ask for the money to prevent that from happening; you don't get the pictures published everywhere first. Secondly, the photos have to look something like me.…

You all remember Violet, the jar-opening octopus, I'm sure—well, Violet is also quite the fierce predator. I would suggest that keeping a pet octopus is not a wise decision if you happen to be an arthropod.

My wife is going to be upset at this—we're going to have to have a couple more kids, just so I have an excuse to take advantage of the Geologic and Paleontologic Cook Book. It's got recipes for Ammonites in a Blanket, Cephalopod Celery, a Cheese and Bugles Coral Reer, an Edible Devonian Marine…

Nautilus pompilius Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

I've been following that thread on Conservapedia, and I've seen what you scalliwags have been up to, littering the poor site with humorous edits and then coming over here and tittering about it. You do realize that Conservapedia's entries required the indentured labor of 58 homeschooled children…

See that guy over on the right? The well-fed fellow doing the salute? That's Jesus. Not just a guy named Jesus, but the Son of God. The Messiah. The literal second coming of the Savior. King of kings, Lord of lords, yadda yadda yadda, and he swears he isn't a False Christ. That's what he says,…

We faculty at UMM are about to go off to a Campus Assembly meeting, which is always good for making one thirsty. Fortunately, there's a Drinking Liberally scheduled for tonight, at 6:00, at Old #1—it would be a great idea if we all stopped in for a little refreshment and conversation afterwards.…

John McCain is going to be addressing the Discovery Institute in a panderiffic event tomorrow. DefCon Blog has a petition urging him to cancel his appearance, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that no candidate should be giving moral support to such a contemptible organization. I have mixed…

I guess Phillip Johnson stepped down from on high to deliver a thunderbolt of a defense of Intelligent Design creationism. At least that's the impression you get from the IDists. Ho hum. To me, it sounds more like an old man farted. You can get an assessment from the rational people on the side of…

Am I supposed to believe religion is a force for morality, when I see so many examples of it more being a force for mindless obedience to arbitrary rules? This story out of Pakistan is disturbing in many ways. Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of…

Speaking of hugging your squid today, A colossal squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, has been caught — it's about 10 meters long and weighs about 450 kg. The place to go for all the information is TONMO, of course; I'll just share some of the pretty pictures with you. Sad to say, this beautiful…

This letter to the New Zealand Herald was written to protest a claim that NZ was a "Christian nation". It's got a nice twist to it. If my resistance to deem New Zealand to be a Christian nation makes me a traitor, as Brian Tamaki suggests, take me to the Tower, or the New Zealand equivalent, for it…

Take a look at this interesting discussion of a recent PLoS article in which publications in medical journals are reluctant to use the word "evolution": According to a report released last week in PLoS Biology, when medical journals publish studies about things like antibiotic resistance, they…

A reader pointed me to this German documentary (with English subtitles) on evolution and creationism—it has a nice 10 minute primer on mechanisms and evidence for evolution (with evo-devo, especially of fruit flies and zebrafish, prominently mentioned, appropriately enough for the country of…

The article about gastrulation from the other day was dreadfully vertebrate-centric, so let me correct that with a little addendum that mentions a few invertebrate patterns of gastrulation—and you'll see that the story hasn't changed. Remember, this is the definition of gastrulation that I…

We have to follow where the evidence leads us, and we finally find an important function for the adult appendix: as a reserve ammunition pouch. Though it may look vaguely like a hand grenade, the solid white structure in the X-ray is actually someone's appendix, visible only because it is full of…

At least, I hope so. The "conservapedia" is supposed to be an alternative to Wikipedia that removes the biases—although one would think the creators would be clever enough to realize that even the name announces that Conservapedia is planning to openly embrace a particular political bias.…

I'm sure some of you will soon be bragging about how your Squid Quotient is higher than mine. Your Squid Quotient = 158.25 Interpreting your results: An average Squid Quotient is around 100. A SQ of 100 means you have a normal affinity for squid. A SQ above 100 means you have an attraction or…

The great unanswered question: How many condoms can you put on a penis at once? These people make a gallant effort to discover the answer, but are stymied when they run out of condoms…after slipping 625 of them on. Then, unfortunately, there's the step where they use a hacksaw to remove them… (via…

SWAT teams training for drug raids casually shoot target dogs, so guess what they do on the real raids? Fascist scumbags. In anything other than a police state, you'd expect the law enforcers to be held to the highest possible standards of conduct; in the US, the police with the biggest guns are…

It's not looking good for the authors of a study that evaluated the efficacy of prayer. The authors were Rogerio A. Lobo, Daniel P. Wirth, and Kwang Y. Cha, and now look at what has happened to them (link may not work if you don't have a subscription to the CHE). Doctors were flummoxed in 2001,…

That's one interpretation, at least. Shelley finds a new item in a disturbing PETA ad campaign. I really don't understand what they're doing; putting up all these ads to associate meat and butchery and experimentation with sex seems counterproductive. What if the ads work, and everybody starts…