pharyngula

I'm getting a sudden surge of hate mail, and most of it seems to revolve around the Daniel Hauser case. I assume something I wrote has been reposted somewhere frequented by morons. Anyway, these are a bit weird. Some people really hate chemotherapy, I think, because it has them extremely upset. So…

How strange: he was a little younger than me (but not much!), so it's sad to learn that the King of Pop has died of a heart attack. He had real talent. Die young, leave a strange corpse.

The list of winners of iPods of various flavors from Creation Science Evangelism: Third place: Kirby Hobley, who created a post on the atheist sub-group of Reddit. Second place: Richard Haynes, of Atheist Nexus. First place: PZ Myers of you know where. Good grief, the atheists won a clean sweep! It…

Last week, I received an ominous email from Stuart Pivar. Dear PZ, The work of my lab has been subject to questions and harsh criticisms, some reasonable, some not. The scientific ones are dealt with in a new book On The Origin Of Form, Evolution by Self-Organization, an alternative to the…

I'm really not being mean and trying to banish a fellow science blogger to some barren, frigid desolation — hey, that's where I live! — but she's volunteering to leave New York for a month to live in Antarctica. All you have to do is vote for her essay, and presto, maybe they'll ship her off to…

I have just received a message from The Almighty Lord on twitter, re the kinds of expletives people use when excited. Strangely enough, you're right. People shout My Name when they have sex, because I am all one can think of when they're orgasmic. This is all wrong, a myth that another patriarchal…

Thanks to all of your helpful clicking, I have just received this message from Eric Hovind of Creation Science Evangelism: Congratulations, you logged the most clicks to CreationMinute.com and won an Apple iPod Touch complements of Creation Science Evangelism. Good work, gang! I hope it's full of…

Some people have asked for a thread to laugh over the latest Republican hypocrite: Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, often considered a likely Republican candidate for president, has been caught with his pants down. He had an affair with an…

I've been away all day, shuttling family about, so I've been trying to catch up the ongoing drama in the conflict between those simpering accommodationists and us mean new atheists. If you've got a little time — there is a bit of tl;dr about it all — read Sam Harris's exchanges with Philip Ball.…

It's a novel argument, at least. This evangelist has a weird justification for the priority of Christianity: because we say "Jesus Christ!" when we wack our thumb with a hammer, instead of "Buddha!", he must be the one true god. Alas for that line of reasoning, I've noticed that more people are…

The boy who was in the news recently for his Hodgkin lymphoma that his family wanted to treat with ineffectual homeopathy and herbs is actually getting better — now that the courts have ordered him to continue the medically functional chemotherapy treatments. He doesn't like chemotherapy, though (…

Even if he does try to clumsily word his polls to drive answers towards the one he wants — we're smart enough to see through that and boldly click where we want. Let's surprise Congressman Duncan Hunter with the vigor of our response. Do you support a government imposed healthcare policy? Yes, even…

He seems a bit peevish. He now has a blog post up complaining about me and my "inaccuracies". His complaints are amusingly petty. I object to the lies at the very heart of his "museum", and he thinks he is rebutting me by whining over petty details. For instance, he quotes me as regarding the idea…

Finally, Mr Deity notices what's been written about him, and his wrath is righteous. It's too bad he seems to have lost his knack for slam-bam smiting, though.

This must be an example of those emergent properties people talk about. In one of the comment threads, some simple suggestions for new commenters have been formulated. They're pretty good — pay them some heed. When you post, even if you intend to reply only to PZ or to one other comment on the…

In more ways than one. You know I mocked his weird decision to sell an edited version of Darwin's Origin with a long-winded creationist introduction just this morning…and he's already edited the ad to include a quote from me. "It's like a book with multiple personality disorder -- two parts…

The Templeton Foundation really must run this ad. I'd applaud their honesty if they did…but they won't.

Even here in Minnesota, we get creationists ranting in the newspapers. This one is in the Brainerd Dispatch. In response to a previous writer's statement " ... modern neo-Darwinian synthesis of organic evolution is supported by more compelling and intellectually satisfying empirical evidence that…

The news from a small UK survey is heartening: teenagers are abandoning or never had much belief in religion. Two thirds don't believe in gods at all, and It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world".   The survey…

I am horribly envious. I am speaking of the Village Dog Project, some current research going on that looks very cool. Understanding the evolution and domestication in dogs requires genetic analysis of a global and diverse panel of non-breed-affiliated village dogs. With a network of worldwide and…

What a deal. For only 99¢, you can get an abridged version of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; you can tell it's been abridged because the title has been reduced to Origin of Species. It's also…

Oh, dog. Discussion of the conflict between science and religion. Francis Collins comes up first. Atheists are shrill. Human genome. Morality is a pointer to god. C.S. Lewis. Fine tuning. Atheists are arrogant. Atheists are fundamentalists. Atheism is irrational. Read my BioLogos website. The…

Speak the name "Templeton" and the prim, dutiful servants of the foundation will appear. If you look at the recent articles from Coyne, Dawkins, and me, you'll discover the same comment, shown below, from a representative of the Templeton Foundation. I've seen these guys in action before. They are…

We only have a month or two left. I have been reminded of a prediction made in the July/August 2004 issue of Touchstone magazine. Brace yourselves. Where is the ID movement going in the next ten years? What new issues will it be exploring, and what new challenges will it be offering Darwinism?…

You little scamps in the comments have been acerbic and rude and loud again, haven't you? I've received a little threat in the mail about your activities, and you know how threats get me all trembly and weak in the knees. Dear PZ Myers. My name is Petter XXXX and I am a graduate student in…

Juicy stuff from a mainstream newspaper coming out and hitting Scientology hard: this week and over the next few days, they're publishing a special report on Scientology. If you've followed the cult at all, there's nothing too surprising — it's a scam run by abusive psychotics — but it does have…

I don't understand what this guy is saying.

There exists a "Templeton Cambridge journalism fellowship programme in science and religion". I've complained often enough about the state of science journalism nowadays; I would think the last thing it needs is a further infusion of soft-headedness and religious thinking sponsored by the devious…

She's still going on about how fathers behave.

A young man in Kansas had a traumatic event in his life. Here's a simple outline of what happened. Chase Kear has a serious accident, fracturing his skull. ↓Bystanders call for emergency medical help on their phones.↓ Doctors arrive in a helicopter.↓ Doctors administer emergency care…