pharyngula

I hate to break the news to him, but he's just so Johnny Snow. I've grated against ol' Wayne a few times before to mock his awful polls, and now I think he has finally snapped, babbling out incoherent mush about how atheists are just like believers, only worse…and he really doesn't like me. I don't…

Since it will be otherwise buried in the endless thread, I thought it might be a good idea to put this plea for help from someone calling themselves "EvolutionSkeptic" up top. Hey, so some of you may remember me (one can hope). I found this thread that some people told me last time to find when I…

It's an amusing list of the various ways skeptics can be dickish. I've noticed that there's been a massive eructation of YDIW skeptics lately, myself.

A while back, Larry Arnhart wrote an article claiming that evolution supported libertarianism. I was invited to write a reaction essay, which I did, and I argued that evolution supported diversity, and that it was silly and inappropriate to claim it for a single narrow human political movement. I'd…

Of course! This would work! What do you need to prevent pregnancy? Why, an extract made from babies, of course — 100% pure organic Brazilian rainforest babies. Unfortunately, it won't work for atheists, because you have to consume the babies homeopathically.

Octopus chierchiae (via Daisy Hill Ceph Farm)

The July Molly goes to…Aquaria and a_ray_in_dilbert_space (finally!) Now line up and leave comments here about your favorite commenter for the month of August.

There is a wonderful program in place at a bible camp in Massachusetts: the children get phone calls…from God. He tells the kids to proselytize for him, to be just like Jesus, and if they're really, really good, that he'll swoop in some day on his magic sleigh and harvest their souls to bring to…

What is it about Elsa Lanchester and The Bride of Frankenstein? She's the "it" girl of the 20th century, and here's a whole gallery of Bride images. I have a favorite, for some reason.

Let's do commercials for the 100th entry in the thread of agony! (Current totals: 10,935 entries with 1,110,958 comments.)

Here's a swami with his magic breathing advice for coping with throat cancer. How these guys can dispense bogus medical advice and not get lynched by angry cancer patients is a mystery. At least he looks really goofy when he curls his tongue and breathes. Now if only there were some yogic…

Roy Peter Clark wrote a book about language which was savaged viciously on Language Log — in other words, the poor guy was publicly ridiculed and his work rudely trashed. He couldn't possibly have learned anything from that, could he? He has a guest post now in which he describes his reaction. In…

The Institute for Creation Research had been trying to get approval from the state of Texas to offer graduate degrees in science education — they failed. Now they have actually publicly admitted defeat, which is gratifying to see. So we won't be seeing a wave of teachers with master's degrees in…

Some good news: the online 'debate' between Dawkins and the religion editors of the Times can be read for free. It's a terrible format: it's just a chat window with people throwing questions at Dawkins, which he deftly slices out of the air with a samurai sword of reason. Here's one of the more…

From the Guardian: Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe? 81.3% Yes. I believe in gravity, not divinity 18.7% No. God: Hawking 'not necessary' Somebody show me the units of divinity, please, as well as a few measurements that show the goodness of fit to…

Laplace, Hawking, same difference. In a completely unsurprising move, Stephen Hawking has made it clear that we have no need for the god hypothesis. Modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. Just as Darwinism removed the need for a…

Already, deranged Discovery Institute shill David Klinghoffer is blaming the hostage-taking nut James Lee's actions on Darwinism. Witness the recent examples of Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter James von Brunn, Columbine High School shooter Eric Harris, Jokela High School shooter Pekka Eric…

Aseroe rubra

A gunman with an explosive device is holding hostages at the Discovery Channel building until they give him what he wants. What does he want? Well, he's nuts, and his page of demands is loading very slowly, so here's what I was able to extract: The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world…

Disney has always been aggressive about extending their copyright to the various Disney characters — they keep going to congress and getting more years tacked on. It's clearly past due that we should revoke all that (come on, Ol' Walt died when I was in 4th grade, and I don't care if his…

I've been in a bit of a fog for the last few weeks, and am just now catching up on the noise about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque", and I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in Hitchens. He rightly points out that most of the opposition is base, stupid demagoguery and racism, but then he offers…

BigThink has been having a Month of Dangerous Ideas, in which each day they publish a pro and con for a provocative idea, like "Tax Fat People" or "Mandatory Bible Study" (promoted to make people more moral, believe it or not), from which you'd get the impression it was mainly a month of stupid…

Here's a silly poll from Eric Hovind, and we know from experience how it will go: if he doesn't like the results, he'll jigger everything around until he gets what he wants. Make him dance anyway. How do we know God exists? Without Him we can't know anything 47% Um...He doesn't 35% Examined…

Prime Minister Harper has come up with a bizarre goal: he thinks so highly of the US's Fox News that he wants to create a similar propaganda organ up North. Incredible — isn't Canada supposed to learn from our terrible mistakes? Here's an idea: sign this petition. It can't hurt. But then, the plan…

Yeesh, you've dragged me onto the internet to update the nagging thread again, despite the work piled up around me and the ickiness I'm feeling from all these new meds I'm soaking in. Now back to recuperating and writing. (Current totals: 10,918 entries with 1,108,155 comments.)

I'd never heard of knol before, but apparently it was Google's attempt at creating a competitor to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has its flaws, but wow, it was revealing to see the alternative: knol is awful. It was brought to my attention because it is infested with woo. To see how bad it is, compare the…

A reader, Sam, sent some fascinating excerpts from a court decision in 1824, Updegraph v. Commonwealth. It was a small case that prompted the judge to write a seventeen page furious rant, and reading it will make you realize what Glenn Beck's America would like to return to — no, thanks, I wouldn't…

Oh, my. Tony Blair seems to have declared war against us. "We face an aggressive secular attack from without. We face the threat of extremism from within." Arguing that there was "no hope" from atheists who scorn God, he said the best way to confront the secularist agenda was for all faiths to…

Quick, accelerate the campaign of world conquest before anyone else catches on. The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Aqua ThreatDown - Oyster Sluts, Japanese Hackers & Israeli Regulators<a> www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox…

Oh, no. Atheists are the arrogant ones, so how can this Irish Catholic write such pretentious nonsense? Religion unleashes a boundless curiosity in us that elsewhere is afraid to reveal itself for fear of appearing naive. Yeah, tell that to Galileo, Simplicio. I guess freethinkers must lack that…