pharyngula

We just had one of these! Mendel's Garden #6 Friday Ark #104 Well, just to flesh it out a little more with some random links, here are some photos. I was told the second one made someone think of me (warning: body modification!). And, jebus help me, for some reason I thought this photo was very…

What the heck is wrong with the people at Slate? I simply do not understand why any magazine would put in a science column, and have Jackie Harvey, I mean Gregg Easterbrook write it. It's an astonishing decision, and I'm stunned into silence…so I'll let others do the snark and abuse.

This has been a bountiful week at Chez Pharyngula, and I have received generous gifts from several readers. A full accounting lies below the fold. Why, yes. Yes, I do. Readers from Winnipeg visited the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre and reported on what they found there…and they sent me a t-shirt…

More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government. It doesn't go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women's fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and…

Nautilus pompilius Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Republicans are capable of thinking long term—really long term. After a recent hearing, Rep. Don Young (Reprehensible, Alaska) enlightened us with a Deep Thought: Before he left the hearing, Young, noting the presence of network TV crews, took a moment to reflect on his…

He went to the Walcott Quarry for his vacation. And he waved his photos under my nose.

The dwarf planet formerly known as Xena has been renamed Eris, and it's companion has been named Dysnomia, and Phil finds something funny: a guy who thinks renaming planets after discord and strife is a moonbat plot to mock the Bush administration. Seriously. He's nuts. War and chaos don't come to…

Now the physicists are putting together carnivals: it's Philosophia Naturalis #1. Hey, aren't these carnivals kind of like…stamp collecting?

"Archbishop of York"? What kind of silly, made-up title is that? The Archbishop of York has said British Christians should see Muslims as allies in the struggle against secularism. In a speech at York Minster, Dr John Sentamu said British Muslims were not offended by Christianity and preferred it…

A few carnivals have popped up: Carnival of Education #84 Skeptics' Circle #43 I & the Bird #32 Carnival of the Liberals #21 Also, Mendel's Garden #6 is looking for submissions — it will be hosted at The Voltage Gate tomorrow!

We are all familiar with the idea that there are strikingly different kinds of eyes in animals: insects have compound eyes with multiple facets, while we vertebrates have simple lens eyes. It seems like a simple evolutionary distinction, with arthropods exhibiting one pattern and vertebrates…

You'll have to read the whole thing to find out what everyone knows.

Red State Rabble declares that we must stand united against the common enemy, creationism and such anti-scientific forces of unreason that threaten our secular institutions. That's a nice, fuzzy statement, which I personally suspect is unrealistic and unworkable, but let's give it a try. Our first…

Everyone knows the story of Konrad Lorenz and his goslings, right? It was a demonstration of imprinting: when young animals are exposed to a stimulus at a critical time, they can fix on it; Lorenz studied this phenomenon in geese, which if they saw him shortly after hatching, would treat him like…

Wilkins is keeping us busy lately: he also has a a whole series on why creationists are creationists. The short answer to the problem he gives is to teach them the process of science, not the rote solutions, and to catch them early—I agree, college is too late. I think he missed one other…

The Pope speaks, John Wilkins replies. Wilkins is sufficient, but I just had to comment on one silly thing the pope said about the consequences of evolution. Man, "would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless," said the Pope. This is…

True confession: I try to watch the medical drama House when I can. It's lead character is an acerbic and brilliant atheist M.D. (played by Hugh Laurie, a comedic actor—which was a smart casting decision), and the humor is snarky and dark. That's just the kind of thing I enjoy. It's been going…

The newest edition of the Tangled Bank, Tangled Bank #62—Travel Bingo edition, is now up at the Hairy Museum of Natural History. The editor went all out for this one and made custom icons for each entry: don't you wish you'd submitted something now?

Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist has put out a call for deconversion stories. I already posted mine a while back—send him a link if you've got one!

Pam Spaulding reports that Ken Ham's clown palace of a 'museum' will be opening in April. I am so tempted to make a road trip this summer to see it and mock it…but no, I don't really want to put one penny in his coffers. I did think this was funny, though: According to Ham, the museum is already…

May I direct your attention this way? If you really want to make a case that GW Bush has been hurting American science, look where it really counts: follow the money. The Scientific Activist has the numbers, and it's rather dramatic how research funding has dwindled over the years.

This week, my students are thinking about SIDS, aging, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard, oncogenes, hunger, individuality, worm movies, obesity, sunscreen, and whether to divide or die. A fairly typical set of undergraduate concerns, right? They've all also been reading chapters 3 and 4 of Carroll's…

I'm a little surprised at the convergence of interest in this news report of a conserved mechanism of organizing the nervous system—I've gotten a half-dozen requests to explain what it all means. Is there a rising consciousness about evo-devo issues? What's caused the sudden focus on this one paper…

Stop it! Some misguided people are killing stingrays in apparent retribution for the death of Steve Irwin. A fisheries department official says up to ten of the normally docile fish have been found dead and mutilated on Australia's eastern coast since Steve Irwin was killed by one last week. At…

There was some kind of anniversary yesterday, to which I did not and will not refer—I think the tragedy of that day has been overwhelmed and lost by the ongoing catastrophe of the criminal response by our government, and while a single day is trivial to memorialize, five years of disgrace is…

Give all the fundamentalist Christians a copy of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, then sit back and wait for them to kill each other. I'm amused that the article calls it a "theological argument": the guy gets upset at the movie, sees his wife, calls her evil, and tries to strangle her. Yep,…

He has asked me to post this section of his book to show that he had not suggested that human origins and the Cambrian explosion might have been a miracle. To the nonbeliever, there is no spiritual reality, and hence no miracles. To a person of faith, miracles display the greater purposes of God,…

Look, everyone! The Lehigh University biology department is hiring! I wonder if they're searching for a "design theorist" to complement their eminent Professor Behe… ASSISTANT PROFESSOR Evolutionary Biology The Department of Biological Sciences seeks candidates with outstanding research that…

Because their priorities are screwed up. Benedict—on the second day of a visit to his native Bavaria—said that spreading the word of Jesus Christ was more important than all the emergency and development aid that rich churches like those in Germany gave to poor countries. Don't even get me started…