pharyngula

I must have been sleeping, because I hadn't noticed that this came out: Janet Browne, the author of a most excellent two-volume biography of Darwin, has a new book titled Darwin's Origin of Species: A Biography. That one is going right to the top of my Amazon wishlist. Michael Barton has a review.

Last April, I received this nice letter from Mark Mathis. Hello Mr. Myers, My name is Mark Mathis. I am a Producer for Rampant Films. We are currently in production of the documentary film, "Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion." At your convenience I would like to discuss our…

Come February, we are going to be privileged to see a brand new movie that stars Ben Stein and portrays Intelligent Design creationism as the cool rebel oppressed by the stodgy old Darwinist bullies. Did you know that "scientists are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent…

We have a new scibling today: read Zooillogix for all of your weird and exotic zoological needs.

Scienceblog's own Tara Smith, with Steve Novella, has an article in PLoS on HIV Denial in the Internet Era. It describes some of the major players among the HIV deniers, and most importantly talks about their tactics. It's useful even if you aren't at all involved in that branch of biology or…

Would you believe that there was a poster at the European Society for Evolutionary Biology meetings touting the destructive works of a known creationist? Photographic evidence is available!

Really, Tikistitch finds the weirdest stuff, but I still think I want one. Even if it is rather impractical — in this part of the world, we seem to go from frolicking naked in the heat to requiring multiple layers of down and fabric to survive, so these items for in-between temperatures don't see…

It was one of those weekends. I really didn't need Bora's avant-garde camera work to add motion sickness on top of the painful auditory replay of … karaoke in New York. I am at least grateful that he didn't record Razib's unholy summoning of the slimy minions of the Great Old Ones.

On the advice of counsel, I'm not going to say a word, yet. However, I've been getting lots of email and seeing lots of articles on the web; I've been getting offers of pro bono lawyering and to set up donations for a defense fund. Thanks to everyone! I haven't been replying to most of those offers…

It's a stupid internet poll, and it's very badly phrased, but you should vote anyway. Larry King wants to know "which religion do you associate with?" — and atheism is one of the choices. (I know, I know, atheism isn't a religion. Argue about it later.) Heh. The poll is currently registering 71% of…

Yesterday's discussion of future biological advances that will piss off the religious right had me thinking about other innovations that I expect will happen within a few decades that might just cause wingnuts to freak out. First thing to come to mind is that it will be something to do with…

It's nice to see these casual references to PZ Myers, as if anyone would have heard of me: The lab is at 101 Theory Drive, a developer's idea of a scientific street name that Lynch found presumptuous. It is a mark of the difficulty of life sciences — biology and its many descendants — that to call…

I'm a bit reluctant to post this, because … what if they actually start using this argument? Maybe mass extinctions are actually evidence of a prior Rapture. This would mean, of course, that the Tertiary corresponds to the Tribulation, and we should prepare for the return of Jesus Rex.

There is this fellow, Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., who claims that the tales of the Bible are verified by ancient Greek art — ho-hum, the usual confirmation bias and failure to recognize that the existence of common motifs in Western mythology does not imply the reality of a supernatural…

Ars Technica has an article on bad science in entertainment, with a list of items that were particularly annoying: Any time Star Trek tried to do biology. They may have been awful with all the other areas of science, but I'm a biologist, and I know they were awful with this. Note to film and TV…

I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't been following the story of Hurricane Dean at all — it's far away, and I've been busy traveling and trying to get my classes organized — but Chris Mooney has. In a short summary on his blog and a longer article on the Daily Green, he explains why I'm a bad…

If not, Minnesota Stories has a short interview with PZ Myers, taped last year. It's too bad the camera didn't pan to my left a little bit, because my Trophy Wife™ was sitting right next to me the whole time, and she would have been much more restful on the eyes.

I've been informed by Greta Christina that I've been beaten to the punch: the best title ever is already taken. Happiness Is a Squishy Cephalopod(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It's so true, and I'm going to have to pick up a copy of that one.

Here's some exciting news: Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years. It is exciting but not surprising at all — but of course we're going to be able to assemble entirely artificial life forms soon. It's just a particularly complicated kind of chemistry, and it's more of a deep technical problem than…

The commenters have spoken, and two new Order of the Molly awards have been issued.

This sounds like it's got to be a spoof, but it's so weird it could also be true. Karl Rove's adoptive father was a cover model … for a magazine about genital piercing. That's fine by me, it's just that it does make me wonder what's going on in Karl Rove's head — an honest biography of the man…

You know you've been overdoing the alcohol when you find yourself naked and half-eaten by bears. A 23-year old Serb was found dead and half-eaten in the bear cage of Belgrade Zoo at the weekend during the annual beer festival. The man was found naked, with his clothes lying intact inside the cage.…

If it existed, it might also be profoundly autistic and … diabetic? So science cannot disprove the existence of a soul, but one thing we're learning is how much valued human properties such as love and attachment and awareness of others are a product of our biology — emotions like love are an…

People. You cannot use a very silly, poorly defined, done-for-a-hoot internet quiz to make sweeping conclusions about schools of thought. You also can't just raise up your prejudices and point to them as evidence, as in this case: Based on Wired Magazine's observation that atheists tend to be…

(via The Freethinker)

Unbelievable. Adnan Oktar, aka Harun Yahya, the Turkish crackpot creationist, didn't like the fact that his critics wrote mean things about him … so he applied to a Turkish court to have all Wordpress blogs blocked. And the court accepted his argument, and no one in Turkey has been able to access…

So … this weekend, we had an odd and informal secret meeting of the SciBlings in New York City. This was nothing official, it's like a whole bunch of the bloggers here decided they ought to get together some time, and a plan slowly crystallized and the precipitate settled out on NYC. It was decided…

I'm home at last, after a long flight and a long drive through more thunderstorms, and boy am I tired. Not from the flying and driving, but from being the old geezer amongst the youngsters at that recent meeting, and trying to keep up with them. Did you know those whippersnappers stay up to all…

So, there's about 30 or so of the ScienceBlogs clan gathered in New York City this weekend. We've been busy, ummm, bonding or something, and also having some serious discussions, but now we're more or less free. We're kind of dispersed in a chaotic fashion, but some of us, including at least me and…

You may be wondering what I'm doing in New York. I'm not going to tell you, except that I will mention a dreaded phrase: late-night inebriated karaoke. Not me, sweet jebus, but there I was, overwhelmed with culture shock, in a karaoke bar, something I have never experienced before. Let me tell you…