pharyngula

As long as I'm stranded in a snowstorm (thankfully fading right now) and unable to teach my human physiology class this morning, I thought I'd at least put a small part of the story I was going to tell on the web. We're currently talking about muscle physiology, and I've already gone over the…

Here's some more sophisticated theology for you. "Prayer Warriors" in Colorado Springs are hopping into helicopters to fly over the city and deliver prayers from on high. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's the same urge I had when hiking in the mountains in the Rockies and Cascades, and every time I…

I apologize in advance for ruining your Monday morning; you might want to skip over this video of halal methods of slaughter. It's bloody, explicit, and distressing. Of course, if you can't bear to watch it (which is entirely reasonable — I don't get into it, either), and yet you do eat meat,…

Yeah, it's an anti-Catholic cartoon. Laugh, threadketeers, laugh. (Current totals: 11,900 entries with 1,285,406 comments.)

As I was making my slow, anxious way thorugh the blizzard, creeping along through the whiteness on my way home, I saw a sign. It was a big sign by the side of the freeway advertising the Cremation Society of Minnesota…and then moments after that, my car nearly ate a big red van in front of me that…

I'm in Minneapolis right now to give a talk at 2 at the Roseville library. My fellow Minnesotans all know we're being hit with a big snow storm -- the weather service is howling about blizzards and whiteouts. I'm beginning to suspect I'm not going to make it home today. I have a Human Physiology…

Talking all day. Tired. Talking more tomorrow: Atheist Talk radio with Minnesota Atheists at 9am Central time. Also giving another talk at 2pm. Then driving home in a snowstorm. Yay Minnesota.

In Defense of Mockeryby Iris Vander Pluym Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -Thomas Jefferson I read with profound weariness a piece in Salon by Michael Lind entitled Hey, liberals: Time to give the Beck bashing a rest. Lind is apparently under the…

One bright spot in the country right now is the sight of union workers rising up and peacefully protesting anti-labor Republican policies, and some Democrats finally growing a spine and resisting as well. I feel a little better about this. I'm not going to be content until those Rethuglicans are…

We have an informal request here at scienceblogs that everyone avoid putting profanity in our article titles, since those may appear on everyone's site, and some people find it objectionable. Fair enough; unfortunately, in this case, all I could think of to put up there was a paragraph's worth of…

Matt Dillahunty shows the godless followers of the thread how to hammer on believers. By the way, there are a few of us, including Matt Dillahunty, who will be at the American Atheists Convention in Des Moines, Iowa on 21-24 April. Who else is going? (Current totals: 11,893 entries with 1,283,498…

It's state representative Mike Beard. Republican. Christian. Moron. He thinks we don't have to worry about natural resources. God is not capricious. He's given us a creation that is dynamically stable. We are not going to run out of anything. Nuclear war and the death of a few hundred thousand…

McGrath is back, straining to refute atheism. This time, his argument is with the claim that faith is blind. Is not, he says! And then proceeds to muddle together faith with belief with morality with science until he's got a nice incoherent stew, at which time he points to a few floaty bits in the…

Have you ever actually read Leviticus? It's madness. It's full of instructions on how to slaughter a goat, what to do if someone spits on you, how to tell baldness from leprosy, and of course, lots and lots of instructions on what you must never ever do. There was something deeply wrong with the…

I like the cartoon, except for the abuse of the word "species": "specie" is not the singular of "species"! Put some 's's in there!

Obviously, I did it all wrong. I have a digital video microscope in my lab, but what I did was spend about $20,000 on a nice microscope, $1000 on a digital still camera and about $500 on a digital video camera, and $200 on a pair of custom adapters to link them together. The principle is simple…

As I feared it would, the thread on sexist atheists has bloated up remarkably, and yet more clueless angry men have shown up to tell the women what they can do to be appreciated more, so I'm shutting it down and allowing it to continue here. Carry on, mansplainers!

This guest post from James Kakalios got me thinking — if anyone wants to take advantage of this prominent platform I've lucked into for the purpose of publishing their views, I'd be willing to give them an occasional opportunity. I wouldn't want to turn the place into wall-to-wall other people (it'…

My parents never got me nice things. Sure, there was that one Tony the Tiger cereal bowl we kids all fought over back in the 1960s, but they never got us one of these. See? If I'd been born just a little earlier, 14,000 years ago instead of in the 1950s, Dad might have given me the skull of one of…

So I guess they can't be all bad. Yesterday, I chastised Michio Kaku severely for stepping out of his expertise as a physicist to say something stupid about biology. James Kakalios agreed with me, and sent along a little essay about the subject that also makes the point that expertise is important…

The latest furious argument going on in the atheist community is over this panel at an American Atheists meeting in Huntsville, Alabama. The subject was what atheist groups can do to attract more women, which is a good and important question. Kudos for asking it. Here, go watch the video before you…

This week's Nature has a substantial and fairly even-handed article on the unease Templeton funding causes. Jerry Coyne is prominently featured, so you know it isn't an entirely friendly review. Religion is based on dogma and belief, whereas science is based on doubt and questioning," says Coyne,…

If you asked me about cosmology, I'd defer to physicists — I've read Stenger & Hawking & Krauss & Carroll, and I might be willing to say a few generalities about what I've learned about the process, but I'd always say you should look to the original sources for more information. There…

It's a triumph of hope over reason, and that means the residents of the Kiribati Islands, an archipelago of tiny islands with an average altitude of 6.5 feet, are doomed. They've got faith, you know, but one thing they haven't got is any reason. NPR reports on their dire situation as the waters…

Ah, that feels so good…Paula Kirby really cut loose on the believers yesterday. The topic was the compatibility of religion and freedom—they're about as compatible as religion and science. Religion claims to set its followers free, while all the time holding them in thrall and insisting they kiss…

I'm sure many of the prattling horde will agree with this sentiment: we love libraries. When I was growing up, we lived within a few blocks of the town library, and I spent many happy hours immersed in that place. Apparently Alan Moore agrees with me. I have no idea why Death is hovering over…

I'm going to be on Atheist Talk radio on Sunday morning at 9am, for a whole hour. Greg Laden is going to be interviewing me, and he's put up a thread asking for questions. Any questions. Go ahead, make me writhe and suffer and struggle on Sunday — I don't mind, and it'll be entertaining. Greg also…

Paul Krugman has a lovely phrase to describe Republican policies: Eat the future. They are under pressure to cut spending, any spending, but they refuse to touch anything that might cause immediate pain to the electorate…so instead, anything in the budget that affects future voters is going to get…

I'm only a few miles away from the Dakotas — if HB1171 passes, I could put on some hospital scrubs (camouflage, you know), lurk quietly in a hospital, and when some ob-gyn pokes his or her head out, BAM, justifiable homicide. FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to expand the definition of justifiable…

I got a request from the Association Humaniste du Québec to pharyngulate a poll, and who am I to turn away a mob of idiosyncratic and fiercely independent citizens? Quebec, as you may know, has been making great strides in promoting secularism, ending the nonsense of saying prayers before meetings…