pharyngula

After the total votes were added up in the big GMO debate, the Economist scores it 62% against biotechnology, 38% for biotechnology. They also explain that there was a huge turnout and that there was a lot of active campaigning for particular views. The voting has shifted dramatically during this…

So, yay, my plane arrived safely in Minneapolis last night at 1am, and then we had to drive to Morris for three hours, in the snow. Guess how much sleep I got last night? And now I have to scurry off to teach a class about something or other, I don't know what. I've spent the last few hazy hours…

I must catch a plane, but here are a few short notices I didn't want to neglect. Godless folk are trying to establish an atheist discussion site, and they need votes for approval. Help 'em out if you'd like. Phylointelligence is a new site organizing essays to summarize and explain the evidence…

It's hard not to crack a cheerful smile at this story, but do try to take it seriously. A coven of Westboro Baptist anti-gay kooks went off to protest outside a soldier's funeral in Oklahoma, and returned to their car to find their tires slashed. When they drove into town on the flat tires anyway,…

This is a very grim video; the myth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion still lives on Muslim television. When it starts, you might be able to laugh a bit — did you know the Jews drain the blood of young boys to make matzoh balls? — but by the end, where some evil cleric is gloating over old…

Xoloitzcuintle

Yesterday, among many other wanderings around Mexico City, I made a pilgrimage to the Lady of Guadalupe, the sacred Catholic heart of Mexico. It was not what I expected. We left the subway station to join a trudging, milling mob on a hike to the basilica, which wended its way through a narrow…

Will some cheerleaders cheer up the thread a-gogo? Or will the denizens focus their hatred on me? (Current totals: 11,356 entries with 1,185,115 comments.)

How nice: the Atheists Guide to Christmas is available as an e-book for only $1.01. Somebody buy a copy for Bill O'Reilly and any of the other lunatic Christmas warriors.

The A&E Channel has a new show coming up: Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal. Sounds awful already, doesn't it? But it's worse than you think: they're looking for disturbed kids who think they've got magic powers, and then they're flying in "professional psychics" to coach them in dealing…

It was a long day and a late evening yesterday at Primer Coloquio Mexicano de Ateísmo, and today I plan on doing some sightseeing in Mexico City. I also met a lot of Mexican atheists and skeptics and scientists yesterday, and some of them have blogs and podcasts…so here, Spanish speakers, is a list…

Since the last episode of the thread for obsessive conversationalists was all about that Christian obsession with calling Hitler an atheist, here's another one: religious dupes lying about Einstein to make it sound like he was on their side. Einstein never said the words they're putting in his…

I've noticed that the bad practice of "he said, she said" journalism so common at the NY Times disappears when the subject is religion. There, instead, the standard role of the journalist becomes one of the credulous, unquestioning observer. It's evident in this new article on the revival of…

Poor little Ray Comfort is out of sorts because I accused him of promoting a death cult. He does, of course; he wanders about, accusing people of being sinners damned to hell, and pretending that they can be save by believing his Jebus stories. The amusing part about his latest whine is that he…

Oh, my…I think every postman ought to be equipped with a video camera to record their interactions with customers, even though sometimes it may be horrific.

I have arrived after a long, long series of flights, and have already experienced wonderful Mexican hospitality and Negro Modelo, many thanks to the gang from Masa Critica, so all is right in the world. It's not too late to show up, you can register at the door, just come on out to the Hotel Fiesta…

A young woman, Asia Bibi, had a few words to say about Islam. She said that "the Quran is fake and your prophet remained in bed for one month before his death because he had worms in his ears and mouth. He married Khadija just for money and after looting her kicked her out of the house," local…

I remember my physical education class in high school — the instructor (I will not dignify him with the title "teacher") was a psychopath, as far as I was concerned. He ran the class like a petty tyrant; members of the football team were treated royally and given exemptions and privileges, while…

A few days ago, sent you off to vote on a debate on genetically-modified crops, a debate that has continued onwards. We didn't quite pharyngulate this poll; it has gone back and forth, and now the anti-GMO forces have a pretty good lead. One reason that we didn't pound it into the ground is that…

And I'll be meeting some of them tomorrow. I'm sure I'll see a few people from Ateísmo desde México at Coloquio Mexicano de Ateísmo, and more…I actually get to spend a few days in Mexico City. I hope they'll forgive the fact that I don't have a lick of Spanish, which is a bit embarrassing nowadays…

So, denizens of the deep dark thread, how well would you do on a Hitler quiz? (Current totals: 11,342 entries with 1,181,677 comments.)

A team of neuroscientists has made the coolest nerd porn film ever. They gave 16 women vibrators and asked them to bring themselves to orgasm while they made a movie…of their brains, using an MRI scanner. It's going to premiere at the Society for Neuroscience meetings. While it sounds like they…

This is a message from Simon Singh: This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and…

I have no idea who you are, but I know your wife likes you enough to go around asking strange men to give you birthday greetings, so you must be doing something right.

The cartoon is amusing. Wouldn't it be nice to have something in between the raving insanity of Beck and Limbaugh, and the mannered, fearful timidity of, say, almost every Democrat currently in office? Maybe it would help if pundits stopped reacting to everyone who criticizes the wimp on the left…

Passiflora edulis (via UC Botanical Garden Vines Nursery)

From the depths of the endless thread, Owlmirror asks an interesting and provocative question, so I thought I'd toss it up top for everyone to take a stab at it. At what age were you taught about Hell? Was it described as a place of eternal torture, or just being apart from God? Was it taught in a…

I thought at first that this was some subtle photoshop humor — no one would seriously write a book with that title and that cover, and putting George Reker's name on it is just hilarious. But what do you know…it's a real book, wide stance and all that wood and all.

The American Humanist Association is starting a new campaign to increase awareness of reasonable values: Consider Humanism. They have adds that contrast Christian sentiments with humanist ideals, like this one: Consider Humanism - Richard Dawkins from American Humanist Association on Vimeo.…