pharyngula

I think I read this in a Dungeons & Dragons manual. It's a magic spell called Agnihotra that puts a shell around you to resist nuclear fallout when an atom bomb goes off, only in this case, it's real…well, as real as the delusions of a freaky Hindu mystic can make it, which isn't very. But at…

All the cool kids in the endless thread were talking about the versatile uses of the phrase "in my pants", so I have to join in and ruin the whole party. (Current totals: 12,081 entries with 1,316,661 comments.)

Living in paradise, the Pacific Northwest, has probably spoiled her, so it's good that Mother Nature is preparing for her visit. Right now, Minnesota is looking horribly bedraggled and grubby — we've been thawing, slowly, over the last few weeks, so the snowpack burying us has diminished by a foot…

The Credulity of Americans is Unquenchableby Juno Walker An evangelical pastor and his wife are making money off their 11 year-old son's book about his near-death experience. If you think I sound cynical, you're correct; unfortunately, it seems there are far too few Americans who share my…

Clarifying tetrapod embryogenesis, accurately By OldCola [Note from pzm: The text of this one is a little rougher than I like, but the content is interesting and addresses the claims of a character who has been lurking about here for a while, and whose work I've criticized before. If nothing else…

Creationists make some crazy claims about fossils — Ken Ham, for instance, is adamant that T. rex was a vegetarian before the Fall. So let's all laugh together.

Isn't this charming: Utah has officially declared the Browning model 1911 semi-automatic pistol their official state gun. How lovely! I remember when our kids were growing up in Utah, one of their school assignments was to compile all of the state symbols into an illustrated report, so I knew the…

How I feel this morning. Hey, how come there are no LOLcrocs? They're much cuter than cats.

More authoritarian bills are working their way through congress. They simply have no restraint anymore, and are rushing hell-bent to create a police state. Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how…

Ooops. Hot off the dramatic fizzle of the bacteria in meteorites story comes word that Chandra Wickramasinghe is losing his job and the University of Cardiff is closing their astrobiology center. Not because they oppose his work, of course, but simply because the weird science isn't cost-effective…

That's the message the despicable John Edward and Dr Oz tried to give in a recent television program. I knew Edward was beneath contempt, but I've never watched Oz and had only heard second-hand that he was a woo-meister…but this show confirms it. Even worse, Oz brought in a critic, Katherine…

The Catholic Church still doesn't get it By Adrian Liston No matter how many revelations of child sex abuse by Catholic Priests come out, the Catholic Church still doesn’t get it. Take, for example, this story told by the Archbishop of New York, in which he recounts a (probably apocryphal)…

I made this post a few years ago, and I'm updating it now because my family back home in the Seattle-Tacoma area has a tradition: every year they join the Relay for Life to raise money for cancer research, in honor of my sister-in-law, Karen Myers, who died of melanoma. That's my family listed…

I concur with Ophelia Benson: "interfaith" is a code word for the religious clubhouse. It's used to exclude secularism and promote a unity of faith, any faith, where it doesn't matter what BS you believe, as long as you really, really believe. I think we ought to rename the ideology of all those…

I have to call your attention to this article, Stalking the Fourth Domain in Metagenomic Data: Searching for, Discovering, and Interpreting Novel, Deep Branches in Marker Gene Phylogenetic Trees, just published in PLoS One. It's cool in itself; it's about the analysis of metagenomic data, which may…

Minnesota is leading the way. Our Rethuglicans have figured out how to end poverty: by making it illegal to have money if you're poor? Wait, that makes no sense. Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in…

Put your hands over your delicate, shell-like ears, thread denizens, this song is not safe for work. If you like it, play it a second time for the creationists. (Current totals: 12,067 entries with 1,313,567 comments.)

Those fun-loving folks at Answers in Genesis have been revealing some of their spectacular plans for the Ark Encounter theme park. Would you believe that one of them is a ride celebrating the ten plagues of Egypt? Oh, yeah, come on down! Nothing says fun like blood, boils, gnats, cholera, and…

That reputable scientist, Ann Coulter, recently wrote a genuinely irresponsible and dishonest column on radiation hormesis. She claims we shouldn't worry about the damaged Japanese reactors because they'll make the locals healthier! With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have…

Jennifer Fulwiler is an ex-atheist, she says, and is now a Catholic. With her deep knowledge of both Catholicism and atheism, she is writing a book about her conversion experience and has now posted a short guide to understanding atheists for her Catholic fellows. Oh, did I say deep knowledge? My…

I guess I should at least acknowledge it. How about a little song?

What kind of chickenshit outfit is this? The US military has been sponsoring evangelical Christian events for the troops, basically subjecting our soldiers to religious propaganda. This past fall, they endorsed an event called "Rock the Fort," in which Christian rock groups, with the support of the…

The latest information from management on the impairment of service: We are still working to contain the ongoing DDoS attack, and to this end we have recently upgraded our service with Rackspace. This should restore access to our readers who have been blocked for the last week. However, some…

You know the Catholic church just wants to do good. That's why North Dakota bishops (the most enlightened kind!) issued a fatwah against certain heinous so-called charities last week. The two Roman Catholic bishops in North Dakota issued guidelines last week naming several well-known, and in some…

I would like to propose a new law for consideration by our legislature, which I am calling The Minnesota Anti-Texan Act of 2011. I need to work on the formal language for it, but I can give the gist of it here. If any person within the boundaries of the fine state of Minnesota exhibits any of the…

Martin Nowak has written a peculiar paper, recently published in Nature, in which he basically dismisses the entire concept of inclusive fitness and instead promotes a kind of group selectionist model. It's an "analysis" paper, and so it's rather weak on the evidence, but it also seems mostly…

Texas, you are a wonder. You don't have any protections against workplace discrimination on the basis of sex or gender — that might hurt bidness, you know — but you're considering a bill to protect creationists from discrimination. HB 2454 Sec.A51.979.A A PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON…

Jesse Bering disappointed me recently. He started off another evolutionary psychology story with this warning. Consider this a warning: the theory I'm about to describe is likely to boil untold liters of blood and prompt mountains of angry fists to clench in revolt. It's the best--the kindest--of…

Today is my wedding anniversary. I've been married to the same woman for 31 years, without ever straying. Newt Gingrich has been married 3 times, divorced one wife while she was recovering from surgery, and has had extra-marital affairs. Guess who is considered the defender of traditional sexual…