pharyngula

It's awfully hard to get into the spirit of the War on Christmas when Christians are so danged tacky. I mean, really…the Jesus loves you sucker is only one comma away from perfect honesty, while the Jesus Tree Topper with the silk gown, gold crown, nail prints in the hands, and built-in light is…

Here's a fun exercise: since we already have Christianity Today underwhelming us with the most compelling argument for Christianity, how about if we compile Pharyngula's list of "What is the FEEBLEST reason for becoming a Christian?" I'll start with the easiest answer: all of them.

Clive Thompson wants us to simply redefine the "theory of evolution" as the "law of evolution". This is possibly one of the worst ideas I've heard yet for overcoming the problem of the colloquial definition of theory. It is not correct. The theory of evolution is a whole collection of ideas…

Last August, when I was at the Sci Foo camp, Paul Sereno brought along the skull of one of his latest discoveries…and whoa, is it ever a weird one. This is Nigersaurus taqueti, an herbivorous dinosaur with specializations for ground-level grazing. Look at this picture; in reality, it's even more…

I'm not a fan of the Huffington Post — I see too much support for clowns like Chopra and anti-scientific thinking like Robert Kennedy's — so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this. Matthew Chapman posted his suggestion for a presidential debate on science there. This is the same issue I thought…

Sidr is currently officially a Category 5 cyclone, and is about to make landfall in Bangladesh…and has also finally made the top news story at CNN. You can get more timely info from a Bangladesh blog and the Bangladesh online news agency.

If you've been wondering about this administration's priorities (you probably haven't, but go with the flow), take a look at this chart comparing spending on the war with spending on alternative energy research. That thing isn't going to scale tidily to fit on a powerpoint slide, I'm afraid.

Somehow, this reminds me of my meetup with Phil. It's an exercise for the reader to decide whether Phil was the meteor or the cat.

Hang on here. The war in Iraq is costing about $200 million per day, or a billion in less than a week. Yet George W Bush has just vetoed a bill that would give NIH an additional $1 billion per year, raising the budget from $29 billion to $30 billion. And what does he do? He accuses Congress of…

That's a poll on Christianity Today — and I'm afraid "none" wasn't one of the options. Instead, readers got to pick from insipid nonsense like "the reliability of the Scriptures," "The exquisiteness of the physical world," and the winner, "The life and character of Jesus." As Ophelia notes, those…

Try checking the major American news sites: CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the New York Times, you can even try the BBC. There's a major news story missing. You'll have to read Chris Mooney's blog to find it. There's a potential Category 5 cyclone, Cyclone Sidr, on its way to smash Bangladesh. It's going to hit…

I've been ignoring this rain prayer nonsense from Georgia lately, despite the fact that every day I'm getting email about it. It was just too ridiculous to believe—no one, especially not the governor of an American state in the 21st century, could be that loony. And then I watched this video. Good…

The Canadian Cynic points out one of Denyse O'Leary's less endearing habits: her penchant for constant self-promotion and linking profligately to herself. Reading it, what came to mind was the idea of a one-person circle jerk, and then I realized what that implied, and what we were seeing if we…

ScienceWoman has exactly the right idea on combining academia with the profession of being a human being. I was amused at the part of her manifesto that says she'll draw the line at a moderate work-week of 50-60 hours — it's a good goal, but it's strange how it's simply taken for granted that…

Donald Prothero asked me to pass along this request for feedback. He wrote an excellent book on evolution (with illustrations by the inimitable Carl Buell) that beautifully complements the theory with the details of common descent. If you've read it — I'm working on my copy now — let him know what…

I checked out a few of the blogs by the usual suspects this morning, and noticed that the creationists are largely silent (so far, give 'em time) on the Dover documentary from last night…with one exception. The Discovery Institute's Media Complaints Division is wound up over it. They have an eight-…

That's the topic of this interview with an unruly mob of internet atheists, yours truly among them.

An announcement from Minnesota Atheists: Mother Teresa: Closet Atheist or Teflon Saint? Sponsored by Minnesota Atheists Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007 1:30-2:30 p.m. Bedlam Theatre, Minneapolis Around the world Mother Teresa has become an unassailable icon of charity, love and endless toil for the benefit…

The new PBS documentary on the Dover trial, Judgment Day (optimistically reviewed by NCSE! The Discovery Institute in frantic denial!) starts here in the midwest in about a half hour. I've got my diet coke, I think I'll pop some popcorn, and maybe I'll take a stab at liveblogging the show. Let's…

This link is NSFW or for anyone who knows anything about octopus anatomy—it's a couple of nudes with dangerously draped octopuses. I don't mind the nudity but I cringe inside at the thought of where those beaks are.

One of the goals of my university is to go green: we're working on wind and biomass power, we support local foods, we're making a major initiative to add environmental studies to our curriculum, and we're about to build a green dorm on campus. One interesting tack the green dormies are taking is…

I was sent this story of Russian workers in Chelyabinsk discovering a 5-foot long monster prehistoric fish that attacked them and that they had to kill with their equipment. Does this look like a horrible monster to you? Does it even look like a fish? I could tell at a glance that neither was the…

Check out Deltoid for a set of refutations of common global warming denialist arguments. Then you can whine on that blog. (this thread is at 1146 comments right now—I think the blog is full, time to move on.)

(via Too Many Tribbles)

Remember: watch your local PBS station tonight for the premiere of the documentary on the Dover trial, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Imagine how the creationists will writhe and squeak about all the people seeing their fraud and failure exposed.

Last June, we goaded science-fiction author, blogger, and professional wise-ass John Scalzi into promising to visit Ken Ham's Creation "Museum" (actually we bought his attendance by sending him money, which he turned around and donated to Americans United for Separation of Church and State). Well…

Hey, you — you look really stupid with your jaw gaping open like that. That was a little preemptive scorn to get you to prep yourself for this link: it's a fellow complaining about women working as astronauts (and even commanders of the space shuttle!) inspiring little girls to emulate them and…

The middle-aged man named Ian Musgrave has replied to the grey-haired man Michael Behe in response to his recent condescending dismissal of the young woman Abbie Smith (don't these irrelevant signifiers of age, sex, and status add so much to our understanding of the discussion?) It's really all…

Rumor has it that it is John Wilkins' eleventeenth birthday. He's on the other side of the planet, though, where it's tomorrow already, so I'm not sure if his birthday was yesterday which is today or tomorrow which might be today or what. Go wish him a happy celebration anyway and tell him to…

Here I am, rooming with that space case, Phil Plait, and what should appear on the astronomy photo of the day but a cosmic cephalopod, a picture of Comet Holmes that has a resemblance to a cartoon octopus. Perhaps this is a sign of reconciliation? That the savage enmity between two science blogs…