pharyngula

This is Easter, the day Christians everywhere set aside to celebrate the day they were hoaxed by a gang of Middle Eastern charlatans into believing a local mystic rose from the dead. Zeno finds that this year it's also a day to remember another flop: the cold fusion debacle. It's been 19 years…

Remember to tune in to Atheists Talk radio on Air America this morning! I'm going to be traveling, so I'm going to miss it … but I'll catch it later on their podcast.

This particular comic that purports to illustrate me starts off poorly — the first couple of frames look nothing like me — but by the third panel he captures me perfectly.

This is terrible. I've kept her under the radar for so long, and now this recent incident has blown her cover. Shocking information has reached us that PZ Meyers trophy wife (paid for by the tax payers of state of Minnesota) was taking names of the movie goers to, and I quote her words, "be put…

Remember the Warda/Han affair, that daffy, sloppy, plagiarized paper that made it into Proteomics? That little pot is still simmering. If you can read French, you can read Quand un "puissant Créateur" s'invite dans une revue scientifique.

The New York Times has weighed in, and they contacted the producers of Expelled…and what do you know, they're still scrambling to find a credible story. They haven't succeeded yet. Mark Mathis, a producer of the film who attended the screening, said that "of course" he had recognized Dr. Dawkins,…

I'm still busy at this conference, so I have to be quick — and here it is looking like this will be my all-time high traffic day, all thanks the hypocrisy and incompetence of the silly goofballs at Expelled. Anyway, Greg is collecting links, and here's another eyewitness account. Skatje reviews…

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

People are asking me to tell them more about the movie, Expelled. I can't! I was thrown out! Let me clarify a few things. This was a private screening with no admission charge, and you had to reserve seats ahead of time; you also had to sign a promise that you wouldn't record the movie while you…

There is a rich, deep kind of irony that must be shared. I'm blogging this from the Apple store in the Mall of America, because I'm too amused to want to wait until I get back to my hotel room. I went to attend a screening of the creationist propaganda movie, Expelled, a few minutes ago. Well, I…

This is what health departments are reduced to in the face of lunacy. Health officials in the Philippines have issued a warning to people taking part in Easter crucifixion rituals. The health department has strongly advised penitents to check the condition of the whips they plan to use to lash…

The family and I are about to head out to the 34th Annual National Conference of American Atheists — maybe we'll see you there. If you can't make it, or you just don't like mobs of amoral atheists, you can join a few of us squid-lovin' science-worshipping Pharynguloids on Saturday night (here's the…

The Harvard multimedia team that put together that pretty video of the Inner Life of the Cell has a whole collection of videos online (including Inner Life with a good narration.) Go watch the one titled F1-F0 ATPase; it's a beautiful example of a highly efficient molecular motor, and it's the…

Uh-oh. Chris Mooney has roused the wrath of both Brian and ERV with his argument that people on the science side should avoid reacting to the anti-science ranters, because we're just promoting their lies for them. I sort of agree — it is true that we can't criticize these loons without…

It's time for the newest Tangled Bank at Tangled Up in Blue Guy.

Prepare yourself for some neutronium-density stupid, and do not watch this video clip if self-confident, blithering idiots make you want to slap someone. It's the trailer for a new movie, The Moses Code, "the most powerful manifestation tool in the history of the world". If you must know but don'…

Fossils are cool, but some of us are interested in processes and structures that don't fossilize well. For instance, if you want to know more about the evolution of mammalian reproduction, you'd best not pin your hopes on the discovery of a series of fossilized placentas, or fossilized mammary…

For everyone who complained that I didn't say anything nice about Arthur C. Clarke in yesterday's very brief note (I can't help it, I don't believe in burying my opinions along with the corpse), here's some information that made my opinion of Clarke shoot up a couple more notches: The famed science…

This bad propaganda film for creationism is going to come out soon, so I can sympathize with this call to put together an honest science movie in reply. However, I have huge reservations, particularly with the idea that we need to get people who understand science to write the movie. People who…

He had a good long run, and although I think his later books were awful and the flaws of his earlier ones were colored over by my own youth, there's no denying he was an influential science fiction writer. Arthur C. Clarke died today in Sri Lanka.

You know how people can be going along, minding their own business, and then they see some cute big-eyed puppy and they go "Awwwww," and their hearts melt, and then it's all a big sloppy mushfest? I felt that way the other day, as I was meandering down some obscure byways of the developmental…

A while back, I posted about the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury had unambiguously condemned creationism. While I appreciated the sentiment, I had my doubts about his sincerity, and mentioned that I preferred my religious authorities to say "crazy stupid things". Perhaps the Archbishop reads…

The name Satoshi Kanazawa wasn't familiar to me until I read Cosma Shalizi's lovely needlework on the guy, but then I remembered … I have his book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, on my shelf. It has a wonderfully provocative title, so I even skimmed a couple of chapters, which sent…

Michael Egnor has made a blatant tactical error, and Larry Moran catches him on it. Note what Egnor says about evolution, that it is "obviously true". Dr. Wells pointed out that research on antibiotic resistance wasn't guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory. That evolution occurred -- that is,…

That John Horgan fellow — he's always going on and on about the end of something or other. This time, it's about the end of war. There's a little bit of "duh" about it — modern science can end war, all it has to do is end scarcity, or as it says, "Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality,…

A far right wing wanker is suing Ohio State University for discrimination. I hate to say it, but if this account is at all accurate, he might have a case. In 2006, Savage agreed to serve on a committee to determine required reading for incoming freshmen at the Mansfield campus. Savage said the…

Everyone is telling me I ought to read this new piece in Harper's magazine, on the pretensions atheism. James Hrynyshyn has seen it; I don't think I'll bother. It's by David Berlinski, which tells me all I need to know. I will grant him his due, though. Berlinski is probably the world's greatest…

Here's a real horror story: a place called Mercy Ministries claimed to offer psychiatric help to people in Australia, and what they offered instead was nightmarish religious discipline and doctrine. There's something subtle in there, too, that ought to make us ashamed: the Australian reporter calls…

From among our most German friends, I found this article on WeiterGen on women in science that led to an article by one of my favorite scientists, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, that I found rather disappointing. She describes her experiences as a woman in science of a previous generation, in which…

You know, when you stop to think about it, this strip really isn't that funny — it's cutting a little too close to the truth. Ladies of the readership, you may vent your frustration here.