pharyngula

The Kamloops News has obligingly published a couple of reactions to my appearance in their fair city. There is a very abbreviated summary of what I discussed on Friday: Prof shoots holes in creationism. Yes, that's about right. I specifically addressed the fallacies of Intelligent Design…

YAAAAAAAAAAAY! Maybe I should show my students this video on the first day of classes next fall, though. Now I just need to grade this big stack of papers sitting next to me. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,351 entries with 1,369,566 comments.)

Faces are weird. They really are largely accidents of development — all the fine features that we consider lovely sculpted signifiers of beauty are really just products of developmental processes, and what we recognize as pretty is actually just a good job of assembly. I've been talking about this…

When I fly off to give talks, I've got three basic categories that I choose from: there's the "science is godless, and here's why" talk for atheist audiences, there's the "development and evolution go together like peanut butter and chocolate" talk for atheists or scientists, and finally, there's…

Chris Mooney was on Point of Inquiry recently. I know, he's always on PoI anymore, which was the big reason I've tuned that podcast out, but in this case, he's in the hot seat with Ron Lindsay interviewing him on accommodationism. Lindsay is excellent, just calmly and quietly asking killer…

Inbreeding is bad. It increases the frequency of homozygosity for deleterious traits. There's this little thing called pleiotropy. Selection is a powerful tool, but traits can have multiple effects, and extreme selection for peculiarities can have unpleasant side effects — you may think a pug's…

So…the Washington Post asks Richard Dawkins about the goofy Harold Camping/End of the World nonsense, and he gives the perfect answer: Why is a serious newspaper like the Washington Post giving space to a raving loon? I suppose the answer must be that, unlike the average loon, this one has managed…

The Florida legislature has just banned sex. An act relating to sexual activities involving animals; creating s. 828.126, F.S.; providing definitions; prohibiting knowing sexual conduct or sexual contact with an animal; prohibiting specified related activities; providing penalties; providing that…

It's beautiful. If it had more lesbian sex, I'd give it an Oscar. (via BoingBoing)

I don't need people posting stuff their students have submitted. I'm in the middle of grading, so I've got my own, thank you very much.

Just a warning: lately, there've been a lot of nasty, slagging, one-off comments coming in from Yahoo accounts — you know them, the usual unreadable smear of a name that we all call yahoomess. I'm considering cutting them off altogether. All it will take is one click and the yahoomesses will no…

Mike Adams, the cranky quack naturopath, has been exploring "the field of quantum physics" and "consciousness". He says this in his silly pseudo-documentary, "The God Within", after praising physicists and their selfless search for the truth, all while ghostly equations float by in the video. He…

Salon has a tidy summary of the end-of-the-world claims of Harold Camping. On May 21, "starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there will be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth," he says. The true Christian believers…

Christopher Hitchens writes about losing his voice.

Bluefield College is looking for someone to teach general biology. They have a few requirements before hiring you, though. It always amazes me how they can get away with this. The individual must be a committed Christian and have ability to integrate faith and learning, ability to foster critical…

Not the whole continent, of course, or even a majority of its residents, but there are a few hate-mongering, ignorant bigots in Uganda that need a wake-up call. They're trying to expand the death-penalty provisions in their already draconian anti-homosexual policies. Sign this petition. It's not…

That's a bargain price for throwing a reputation down the drain. FSU has turned over some hiring decisions to a billionaire ideologue. A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded…

The deity gets lessons in how to dazzle the hoi polloi. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,334 entries with 1,366,497 comments.)

I saw the new Thor movie tonight. I'll give you the gist of the movie, with no spoiler details. First of all, atheists are allowed to watch the movie. The Asgardians are actually super-advanced aliens who live in a high-tech mega-city with trans-galactic transporter technology that uses wormholes.…

This past weekend, I was feebly confronted by a Canadian creationist, David Buckna, with a list of his objections to evolution. I spent a fair amount of time trying to hammer him with the answers, and the most remarkable thing was that every time we'd start digging into a topic, he'd suddenly…

Even if they did make him wear a funny hat at his graduation this past weekend. OK, yes, he isn't always so serious. He's also currently single, and soon to be stationed in California.

Those are ominous words. Brian and Shannon Gore have been arrested after police, investigating evidence that Shannon Gore had been selling stolen goods, found their 5 or 6 year old daughter caged in their trailer home, gnawing on her own skin. Then they found the body of another child buried under…

(via National Geographic)

Every science blog on the planet is probably going to link to today's xkcd, and I'm not going to buck the trend.

Here's a new creationist argument for you. Rocky Ramsey asks, If people die when hearts, kidneys and livers fail, then how did anyone live while those organs "evolved?" The obvious answer is that they didn't. Man began as he is today. So apes and fish don't have hearts, kidneys, or livers?

Since my opposition is dragging in loads of riff-raff to try and raise money for Camp Quest, I've decided to bring in some firepower of my own. The beard is willing to make the great sacrifice if Team PZ wins this competition at the end of this month. Even better, at the request of my daughter…

Almost all of your public school teachers have sex. Most of them enjoy it and do it repeatedly, even. Many of your public school teachers vote for the Democratic party. Some are conservative Republicans. Some are Communists. Some of your public school teachers are atheists. Or Episcopalians. Or…

There's been a lot of sniping and arguing and angry vituperation in the last several endless thread instantiations. Let's all come together like a big happy family on this day, at least. There is nothing cynical in my choice of videos at all. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,323 entries…