pharyngula

Classes start this week at UMM and next week at our branch campuses in the Twin Cities, and it looks like we might get to deal with a clerical workers' strike. AFSCME Local 3800 is taking to the picket lines to protest the inadequate pay raises offered to them. We're all tightening our belts in our…

Coral Ridge Ministries is pushing hard to promote their pet causes, and Hank Fox suggests that they give him a few goodies from their list of crazy literature and DVDs. They say they'll send it out in return for a voluntary donation, but so far, it looks like the "donation" is less than voluntary.…

How come you people never come visit? I'm only an hour from the freeway by way of a two-lane county road, roughly equidistant from Fargo, Sioux Falls, and Minneapolis, yet somehow no one ever happens to be passing through this remote rural town … until today. Jim Moore took a little detour from his…

Ted Haggard is reduced in his circumstances. He and his family are living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment while he attends classes full time at the University of Phoenix, and he's also helping out in a halfway house for the homeless. It's as if he's taken a vow of poverty and is living the ideal…

Goodbye, everyone: I'm about to destroy your brain. After reading the following, you will all convert to christianity and find no further use for my godless ravings. Sorry, people. When someone tells me not to push the big red button, I just can't help myself. This is the first chapter of C.S.…

Fanaticism and oppression work! The latest editions of the comic strip Opus are being censored by at least 25 newspapers around the country. I have to concede that Breathed's work doesn't have quite the quality it had during the glory years of Bloom County, but that's not the reason it's being…

I heard a rumor that yesterday was Mrs Tilton's birthday, so here's a belated gift: a pretty picture of an exotic Brazilian salticid batting its eyelashes at the viewer. (click for larger image) (Take that, Cute Overload!)

Doesn't this just ruin your day? A cephalopod is featured on Cute Overload. The comments will give you hyperglycemia.

It's Sunday morning! It's that time when we lounge about in robes and jammies and mock (or feel pity for) the faithful, trudging off to be lied to at church. Here are a few fun links for us atheists: Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists of UMM has a preliminary web page, designed by Skatje,…

Lots of people have been sending me email to let me know that Coral Ridge Ministry is airing a program linking Darwin to Hitler. In case you missed it, this show, Darwin's Deadly Legacy, was first aired last year, and I reviewed it then, Wilkins eviscerated its premises, and even the Anti-…

It's like a fantasy land! It was a perfect day at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival, and I got my exercise wandering around this huge event — I think I also got my yearly allotment of dirty jokes. When they say it's kind of like the good parts of the Middle Ages, I think they specifically mean…

I'm in the Middle Ages, where we don't have computers, and it's a real pain to have to hire a wizard to send these messages to the internet. You'll have to talk amongst yourselves and peruse these fascinating carnivals without me. I and the Bird #56 Carnival of Education #133 Friday Ark #153 The…

Not for me, for someone else. I just sit quietly and listen, but I must say this "Rule 11 of the FRCP" sounds awfully interesting. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but there sure are a lot of smart lawyers lining up on my side; they probably know, don't you think?

Whoa, this one is a doozy. I dare you — I double-dog dare you — to stay awake through the whole thing. an open letter biology professor P. Z. Myers Dear Professor Paul Myers, I remain absolutely willing to be convinced of the scientific adequacy of the theory of evolution to explain the phenomenon…

Last chance at escapism before the school year starts: Skatje, her friend Nathan, and I are heading off to the Minnesota Renaissance festival today. I don't know about this; hanging out with a gang of people pretending it's the 13th century is a bit too much like meeting up with creationists.

I've heard of Hirschsprung's Disease as an academically interesting instance of a developmental failure of nerve migration, but you really must read about the human cost of the disease — innocent little babies (and their parents) should never have to suffer this much. Chris Chatham is spreading the…

You may have noticed (how could you avoid it?) all the information about Seed's new contest: if you're commenting with a valid email address, you're in the drawing. The prize is a 5-day trip to a great science city (there's a poll to determine which one) — this is good, because even if some wacky…

The other interviewed guests are amazing. I thought this guy was dead!

Some of you may have never seen an arthropod embryo (or any embryo, for that matter). You're missing something: embryos are gorgeous and dynamic and just all around wonderful, so let's correct that lack. Here are two photographs of an insect and a spider embryo. The one on the left is a…

Our Minnesota Health Commissioner, a Republican appointee who was supported by our Republican governor through a number of startlingly clueless incidents, has finally resigned. Here's a short summary of her career: This summer, Mandernach was criticized over her suppression of a state study about…

I've been trying to recollect what horrible thing I said in that interview with that film crew … what juicy, ghastly, evil comment I might have made that will be plucked out and impaled on a stick and waved to the audience to inflame them. It's a waste of time, of course — I tend to be far too…

Last year, Answers in Genesis ran an essay contest for young creationists — the prize was a $50,000 scholarship to Liberty University (second prize must have been a $100,000 scholarship). Well, they ran it again this year, and the 'winners' have been announced, and a sorry lot of recitations of…

Stauroteuthis syrtensis Figure from The Deep(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Claire Nouvian.

Out of curiosity, I'd just like to know … how many recent instances are there of atheists using death threats, threats against family members, and various other kinds of intimidation to discourage Christians from openly professing their beliefs?

Mr Slime-Snake-Monkey-Mutant himself, Robert Bowie Johnson Jr., has been paying a few visits to scienceblogs — he popped into Stranger Fruit, and paid call on my thread, too. Just once, I wish one of these soundly castigated hoople-heads who come 'round to defend their affronted sanity would…

Sam Harris has a letter in Nature today, urging scientists to unite against religion — even the moderate religion that so many are willing to support. But here is Collins on how he, as a scientist, finally became convinced of the divinity of Jesus Christ: "On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking…

We movie stars are used to the resentment of the little invertebrates. (It desperately needs some correction, though — he ought to refer to himself as "a body-regenerating echinoderm", singular, rather than using the name of the group.)

Aaargh. When will the media learn? National Geographic is running this ridiculous headline right now: New Fossil Ape May Shatter Human Evolution Theory, in which the reporter claims a discovery of some teeth could "demolish a working theory of human evolution." It's not true. Where is this nonsense…

This week's Nature has a horribly depressing article. If you're a graduate student, don't read any further. Really, stop. I hate to see young biologists cry. NSF data show that the number of students in US graduate programmes in the biological sciences has increased steadily since 1966. In 2005,…

If they aren't singing about the drugs they take to make them work, they're wondering why their ex-wives set them on fire. I think I have a new explanation for the Fermi Paradox: the aliens are out there, but they're so freaked out and baffled by human sexual behavior that they don't want to get…