pharyngula

A couple of days ago, I showed you that video of a proud Catholic theocrat who believes that democracy is bad for us, and ought to be replaced with a benevolent dictatorship. Zeno has discovered that he noticed all the attention he was given, and his latest video is all about…us! First, a…

Just the other week, Conservapædia made their page on PZ Myers their featured article for the week; now they've made the Pharyngula blog a target of their cranky ire. Here's their description: Myers' blog is also listed by the science journal Nature, which also embraces evolutionary pseudoscience…

Via Sandwalk, here is Stephen Meyer explaining the central concepts of his theory: it's all about the origin of information. It's a ridiculous argument. He constantly repeats this mantra of "digital information": I don't think he knows what he's talking about. He also likes to claim that he's…

Why do horrible things happen to faithful people? The religious run a protection racket. The key thing about that is that no actual protection is offered, only threats. Warning: anyone who tells that really, really stupid story about a man in a flood praying for rescue will be disemvoweled. It's…

Take a break from the amorphous thread for something pretty. (Current totals: 10,849 entries with 1,092,105 comments.)

I've never been a fan of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's like playing the lottery obsessively, throwing down lots of money in hopes of a big payoff, and I don't play the lottery, either. I'd really like to know if Seth Shostak is innumerate enough to play the lottery,…

There he goes again, making up nonsense and making ridiculous claims that have no relationship to reality. Ray Kurzweil must be able to spin out a good line of bafflegab, because he seems to have the tech media convinced that he's a genius, when he's actually just another Deepak Chopra for the…

The Australians are having an election, and one of the parties is the Family First Party — a Christianist group — and another is the Australian Sex Party, which would have my vote just for the name, if I were Australian. And after watching this debate between the two, I am confirmed in my bias. I…

There ought to be some regulation of the kind of fraud some people peddle online. I'm tempted to try this one: BOOTY ENHANCEMENT Spell Cast by Powerful Wiccan Witch (note: bikini-clad bottom on display at that link), just to see what happens. Except that I know what will happen: nothing. Less than…

This is a good way to do it: when the fortune-telling, pseudo-necromancer John Edward showed up in Vancouver to do his ridiculous cold-reading act, CFI met his deluded followers with information and honesty. It was a sad spectacle; many of the attendees were desperate, bereaved people, there for a…

…is an article by Vic Stenger. He addresses that weird old canard that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", which has always struck me as bogus. Of course it is! It is just evidence of variable strength, from laughably weak (I have no evidence of a teapot in orbit around the sun, which…

Now that it is over, I can say what happened — sometimes people freak out over this kind of thing, and there were no real worries here. On Friday, as I do every day, I went out for a walk for about an hour — I strolled down to the Stevens County Fair, on an unpleasantly muggy early afternoon, and…

I really don't, in any specific way—I have a general distrust of the waste of effort building temples anywhere, but I see nothing unusual or untoward about Muslims (who do live in New York, and may be citizens of this country) building a goofy ol' religious building in downtown Manhattan…except, of…

(via Igor Siwanowicz)

Afterlife? What afterlife? Religion has always fluorished in ignorance. What is it but a collection of stories and claims to explain the mysteries of life — wherever there is something we don't understand, that we lack real knowledge about, there is a priest ready to rush in and fill the gap with a…

Australia is not a particularly religious nation, and they've got the same problems we all do—a sagging economy, and essential demands for social programs that ought to be met…but compromises have to be made. Here, though, is a compromise I can't understand: the Labor government has decided to…

This is a piddly little poll on a lame Christian web site, and it only has a few votes — it'll be a pushover. Give 'em a thrill and more votes than they've ever had before. Are you good enough to get to heaven? I don't believe in heaven or hell 71.8% No, but I put my trust in Jesus Christ who…

We've been doing politics all wrong. Michael Voris has the answers. The problem with democracy is all these voters with different views on things like abortion and homosexuality, where people who vote for such things are just rotten parasites who want to destroy civilization. So he has two…

In the past week, there have been a couple of anti-atheist articles published in the newspapers. I have it easy, though: other people have taken care of the rebuttals. Gary Gutting thinks Dawkins missed the boat on the serious philosophical reasoning behind god-belief. Unfortunately, he doesn't…

12 September will be Burn the Confederate Flag Day. Burn the Confederate Flag Day is a protest against the right's exploitation of racial prejudice for political gain. We urge you to burn the Confederate flag, a long-time symbol of racial hatred, on Sept 12, the date when the racially-divisive…

I was sent a link to an excerpt from a brand new creationist book, and I expected yet another twisty bit of dishonest weirdness of the sort that the Discovery Institute has conditioned me to see. But then I saw the title, The Death of Evolution, and felt a twinge of deja vu — as Glenn Morton says,…

I was amused by this infographic about sex toys, especially by some of the data. Did you know that Mississippians buy more anal sex toys per capita than any other state? I always knew there was something squirmy about Trent Lott.

What a nice idea: bad journalism warning labels that you can stick on newspapers and magazines. It only gets an "almost" modifier because these labels get slapped on after publication. Full-on brilliant would involve hacking into printing houses and digitally inserting the labels so they get…

Ooops, I got distracted and have let the long lingering thread linger too long. Here you go, new thread with a little song to tide you over. (Current totals: 10,830 entries with 1,088,950 comments.)

I'm going to regret this…it's a site that teaches you how to swear in exotic foreign languages, like Tagalog and Australian and Latvian. The comments section may become more profane, but it'll also become more unintelligible.

A game company hid a tiny little clause inside their long boring legal disclaimer that gave them the ownership of your immortal soul. Apparently, Gamestation now owns 7500 souls. This was not a good deal, though. If you'd read the legalese, there was a checkbox to opt out of the soul clause…and if…

Here's an amusing flash video for your morning: what if, after humans went extinct, alien space probes arrived to survey our civilization…and they arrived in the ruins of Kansas? I think we need to rename the Bible Belt. It's more like the Dirty Underwear of America — and you know what your…

That ridiculous article on Biblical diagnosis has been officially retracted, and the editor left a comment at Aetiology: As Editor-in-Chief of Virology Journal I wish to apologize for the publication of the article entitled ''Influenza or not influenza: Analysis of a case of high fever that…

Histioteuthis bonellii (via Spiegel)

Excitement in Morris—big thunderstorm just blew through, taking out trees up & down the street, including one that came within inches of annihilating my car. The power is out, & it may be a while before it comes back. No tornadoes, at least, but the worst part is that it hit while my wife…