pharyngula

The ongoing dissection of Wells' The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design continues, with two new disembowelments on display. Andrea Bottaro rips up Chapter 9, "The Secret of Life". In this one, Wells makes the tired old argument that only intelligent agents can create…

How do evolutionary novelties arise? The conventional explanation is that the first step is the chance formation of a genetic mutation, which results in a new phenotype, which, if it is favored by selection, may be fixed in a population. No one sensible can seriously argue with this idea—it…

It's the second day of fall classes. I must be a little punch-drunk, what with all the obscure humor going up today, so forgive me.

Now if only this were on a bumper sticker…

What a strange story: a woman donates one of her kidneys to another woman in need. Later, the recipient leaves the Christian faith. Now the donor wants her organ back. Smith was aghast when she heard of the conversion, and she quickly wrote a letter asking Felks to re-convert to Christianity or…

Chris has his latest, greatest cartoon. It's correct: you're either nuts, short-sightedly stupid, or venal to an extreme if you support the Republican party in any way anymore.

This Newsweek article on the latest innovation in stem cell research is infuriating. The author, Michael Gerson, is a Republican hack with no competence in biology, which seems to qualify him to be a serious judge of science to this administration. The issue of stem cells was the first test of the…

By request, I'm bringing over this old post on the outcome of the Dover trial. What it reveals to an astonishing degree is how delusional and disconnected from reality the Discovery Institute gang are. Michael Behe has previously commented on his testimony in the Kitzmiller trial. He felt good…

A reader from Stillwater sent in a few photos of this lovely creature. They thought it was just some plant debris until it started crawling. Can you guess what it is? Obviously, the important clue is that they're from Stillwater. This must be a larval spawn of Michele Bachmann. Seriously, though,…

Somebody has a weird obsession with hybridizing terrestrial and aquatic animals, but even more strangely, there isn't a single cephalopod in the whole collection.

So…when is this play, Darwin in Malibu, going on tour? I'd see it.

Wow, it's only Monday, but I think it'll be awfully unlikely that we see anyone limbo under the bar of sucky vileness set by Sylvia Browne this week. Watch her lie to a grieving woman. It'll make you want to take a loofah to your eyeballs. Oh, wait…am I being stupid in my certainty that Browne is a…

Two can play this game—Chad Orzel, who sometimes likes to blame his insufficient popularity on his off-puttingly deep wisdom and excessive sense of moderation and fair play, notes approvingly that "All the world's stupidest people are either zealots or atheists," and that "certainty only comes from…

Plans for my army of zombie cephalopod-cyborgs proceed apace. First target: Holland! Go ahead, open the dikes—nothing will stop them. (via My Confined Space)

Wilkins pins the blame where it belongs: on on a medieval hierarchical concept that Darwin actively negated. It's a very thorough take-down, not that fans of D. James Kennedy will even notice.

It's not every day that one of the Istari gets tenure. Say, did anyone mention to his review committee that he's an immortal? This is going to wreak havoc with the college's finances once he has accumulated some more seniority.

The BIG fair, the Minnesota state fair, is going on right now, and Karina Hill is letting people vote on exactly which repellent Midwestern grease lump on a stick she should eat. Here's the menu: Fried cheese puffs Cajun Season Alligator Sausage on-a-stick Deep Fried Cheese on a stick Jerk pork…

Pope Ratzi is getting ready to get medieval on the Catholic church—he's meeting this week to prepare to smack down those uppity scientists. There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design" taught in some US states.…

The Florida Baptist Witness got various candidates for office to answer a few questions. They're bad questions, almost entirely focused on the issues of the religious right, but Katherine Harris clasped them to her bosom and ran with them. It's actually kind of creepy. The Bible says we are to be…

Oh, no. Our work is never going to end. You should take a look at the new Politically Incorrect Guides that will be coming out after Wells'. At least the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Holocaust looks like it will be very short.

Over at All-Too-Common Dissent, the conversation has turned to Terry Trainor. You've probably never heard of him; he's one of those garden variety self-infatuated creationists who frequented talk.origins some years ago, using the pseudonym "American Patriot" (which does rather tell you a lot about…

This Connecticut mess is doing a great job of highlighting the structural incompetence of the Democratic party, isn't it? Sisyphus Shrugged quotes Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on the current situation with both Ned Lamont, the official Democratic…

They're rather dark and murky, but here: home movies of a creature smarter than any fundamentalist.

(via Positive Blasphemy)

If you aren't yet sick unto nausea with D. James Kennedy, S. Daniel Morgan has a roundup of the recent commentary. And if you haven't had enough, the program is about to be rebroadcast in my area, in the next few minutes. I'm going to give it a pass.

A neurobiologist at UCLA, Dario Ringach, has stopped doing research on primates. The reason? Colleagues suggested that Ringach, who did not return e-mails seeking comment, was spooked by an attack on a colleague. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a Molotov cocktail…

Well, I just watched the much-ballyhooed Darwin's Deadly Legacy, with D. James Kennedy. Here are a few quick comments. The opening scene was perfect. Kennedy walked onto a stage decorated with flasks and beakers and graduated cylinders full of brightly colored water. One had a small flame going…

Perhaps this is redundant, since Jon Swift has already taken care of it, but how could I possibly resist an article titled "The Death of Science," posted on a "Blogs for Bush" site? It's got wingnuts, it's got irony, it's got dizzyingly inane interpretations of science. It's like everything that's…

For more metaphorical execution of the ghastly Mr Wells and his dumb little book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, my article on chapter 3 is now available at the Panda's Thumb, and if you want something fresh, Burt Humburg tackles the internal contradictions and…

It's almost over, so work fast to wish archy a pleasant second half century.