pharyngula

If you want to see the consequences of the recent wave of attempts to endorse "provider conscience rules", in which health care providers are permitted to freely exercise their whims and biases in providing clients and patients their services, read this story. As usual, it's all about controlling…

It's inauguration day, and in a fine old American tradition, every event must be associated with a commercial tie-in. Krispy Kreme dougnuts is offering a free choice of a doughnut in honor of the change in presidents. Did you hear that? Free choice of a doughnut? Get it? Choice? Yeah, I know, most…

Sea squirts or ascidians are lovely little marine filter feeders. They have a larval tadpole stage, where the little guys disperse by swimming, and then they settle down, metamorphose, and spend the rest of their lives quietly sucking in sea water and filtering out small particles for food. They…

I'm completely confused. We've got a parody site parodying a law about parodies — no one will ever be able to keep them straight. Bo's Law relates to Atheism and the difficulty of identifying legitimate Atheists and their organizations because it is so hard to tell fake Atheism from the real thing…

You never know what trivial incident will catalyze a strong reaction. Take the atheist bus campaign, for instance, which simply puts signs on buses that say "There is probably no god" — a few months ago, I would have said it was a good idea and that it should be done, to merely make the background…

I mixed up my dates in a recent post, so here's a clarification on precisely when I wll be in Calgary and Edmonton. Sunday, 25 January, I'll be at the University of Calgary, talking about science education and creationism. Monday, 26 January, I'll be at the University of Alberta for a debate with…

We needed his deep insight to understand the plane crash on the Hudson river, and the media response to it.

It's a good day to take a moment to read Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It tells of an oppression I can't even begin to imagine, and of frustration with complacency and a dream that was always being deferred. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily…

It's hard to beat the spectacle of Dinesh D'Souza defending a god for absurdity, but the Twin Cities Creation Science Association will leaven their idiocy with pathos: it will be time for the Twin Cities Creation Science Fair on 14-15 February. I've got at least one person promising to send me a…

Since I was asked, I'll mention that we do have an interesting event coming up at the end of this month: January 29, Minneapolis, Minnesota DEBATE! Dan Barker and Dinesh D'Souza will debate "Can we be good without God?" at the University of Minnesota on Thursday, January 29. Sponsored by CASH (…

Since the wingnuts and creationists are busily pushing a bogus version of intellectual responsibility that they have labeled "academic freedom", which is really an excuse to peddle any old nonsense to children, some wag is now promoting Academic Free-For-All Day. Ever since that sad debacle known…

You should mark your calendars now…oh, wait, you're all godless neodarwinist stooges, so you've already got Darwin Day colored in with circles and arrows and hearts. OK, so you should add an annotation if you live somewhere near Minneapolis, because the Bell Museum is sponsoring a special Darwin…

Sunday morning at 9am Central, tune in to Atheist Talk radio — this week, Dan Barker is going to tell us something or other.

Alzheimer's disease is a serious problem that causes devastating and progressive mental deficits, and we need to have some of our best minds working on it. So what are these two jokers contributing? Dr. Michael Salla's work in Exopolitics seeks to inspire humanity to appreciate pathological…

I hope most of you are well past your lunch or breakfast now, because this story might ruin it. Never forget that our country is still ruled by a superstitious lot of kooks, a mob of witch doctors wearing suits and ties. This video, which is way too long and boring, shows a Georgia Republican and a…

The state of Louisiana has passed an unfortunate law that allows teachers to toss in any ol' garbage into their science curricula. For most teachers, this will make no difference at all in their classrooms; this is a law that specifically caters to irresponsible instructors who want to smuggle in…

Maybe not to everyone's taste, but Sigur Rós is just one of those bands I'd love to see live.

One of the older arguments against god is that there seems to be some limitations on the kinds of miracles he'll do, especially healing miracles. Faith healers can make some little old lady's pain go away, briefly, maybe, but the big one doesn't work: why won't god heal amputees? That would be a…

Classes start next week, and I'm teaching genetics again. I'm getting lots of questions from incoming students that I will answer right here, just in case there are a few of you reading the blog. There will be no labs the first week of class — first lab is on Tuesday, first lecture is on…

We're losing Evolgen now, so say farewell. It looks like a combination of general burnout and the fact that he's a young guy on a career track, and this is a time of transition, when he's leaving his post-doc and looking for a real position. And as you all know, this isn't the best of times to be…

The temperatures are soaring out here in Morris, Minnesota, rising to a balmy -9°F/-23°C today, after a miserable week in which both our cars show signs of failure (one is still dead in the driveway) and we discovered the limitations of our house heating systems and insulation — once Spring…

Hey, hack journalists, have I got a great concept for you! As I'm sure you're aware, editors and the public are constantly hassling you to write about this discovery or that, and it gets tiresome: you don't really know the first thing about the subject, you certainly don't know anything about the…

Mr Ron Heather, Unprofessional Bus Driver and Pompous Faith-Head, has decided to become briefly famous for his stupidity by refusing to do his job and drive a bus with advertising on it. Mr Heather told BBC Radio Solent: "I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face, my first…

(via the Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Exciting news if it pans out: there are some hints of possible life on Mars, in the form of sporadic plumes of methane gas, similar to instances on earth of outgassing from deep pockets of bacteria. This would suddenly make a mission to Mars interesting. Extraterrestrial biology? Sign me up for…

Details of some high-level Catholic tribunal and how it handles the most grievous sins have been revealed. In a very strange overview, we learn that murder and genocide, while truly horrible crimes, can be handled by lower members of the hierarchy. There are a few that only this tribunal and the…

South Carolina has made it illegal to transmit "material containing words, language, or actions of a profane, vulgar, lewd, lascivious, or indecent nature". Well, darn. Dang it all to heck. Actually, it looks like it doesn't take effect until approved by the governor, so we have a little grace…

Here's a phenomenal suggestion you can promote to the Obama administration: shut down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. It's a huge boondoggle, a fat earmark for low-quality pseudoscience, and it's money that would be better spent on real science and medicine. Sign up…

I just don't get it.