pharyngula

It's -16°F (-26°C) out there, with 15-20mph winds…so we've got a windchill of about -40°. It's about time we had some bracing brisk weather around here.

Gary has a most trenchant summary, but if any Whedon/Ellis fans need the full force of the conversation, it's here.

Here is a serious problem: Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know—never mind want to know—how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two…

The Wampum nominations for Best Expert Blog are up…and Pharyngula is among them. The coolest thing, though: about 20% of the nominees are science blogs!

Chris Mooney sets up an interesting dilemma: It's hard to decide what's the bigger outrage here: 1) That Bush didn't tell the public his real "dissenter" view on global warming; or 2) that Karl Rove set up a secret science advisory session for the president with a novelist. Hmmm. Lying and…

Barbarians.

I used to live in Utah, I've read parts of the Book of Mormon, and I've always been baffled about how such a cockamamie story that is contradicted by all of the evidence could possibly be so popular. Facts don't matter to a religion, of course, and the LDS Church has its own answer: it's a…

Michael Behe's reputation is spiraling down the drain a little more. He denies the ongoing research on his favorite scientific examples, the flagellum and the immune system, and I think Les Lane has the right idea—his favorite icon, Mt Rushmore, needs a little more undermining, too. That first…

You can always trust Francis Beckwith to get it all wrong. He's arguing against the Dover decision on false premises. Should religious motivations of a theory's proponents disqualify that theory from receiving a hearing in the public square? It's a point that has become a central issue in the…

Take a group of seventh graders and ask them to draw pictures of and describe scientists: as you might expect, you get a bunch of pictures of lab coats and adjectives like "dorky". Take those same seventh graders and introduce them to some real scientists, and the descriptions change. OK, if I had…

I often listen to Minnesota Public Radio on my drives to Minneapolis and back—I've got the 3 stations memorized (88.5, 88.9, and 91.1), and know where each one cuts out and I need to switch to the closer transmitter. My only complaint is the annoying, chirpy fund drives, which always drive me to…

In yet another example of evolution in action, investigators have documented morphological changes in the cane toads (Bufo marinus) that infest parts of Australia. They're an invasive species that was introduced in a misbegotten attempt to control beetles that were damaging the sugar cane crop; as…

Just a suggestion: don't browse weblogs when you're trying to perk yourself up with a little cheery good news. The woman who chopped off her baby's arms in the name of her god is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Another woman was arrested for bringing a human head into the country in her…

A few disclaimers: I do get kickbacks from affiliate programs when you purchase books after clicking through those links. If you'd rather not fund a perfidious atheist's book addiction, just look up the titles at your preferred source—I don't mind. This list is not a thinly-veiled attempt to get…

I haven't been doing much today—I'm afraid I've got some bug that had me wrestling with my digestive tract all day yesterday (bad news: it won), sweating and freezing all night, and now today I'm just an exhausted lump. Fortunately, there's lots of other stuff to read. Tangled Bank is up at Kete…

Wayne takes care of a downed tree, and we all learn something.

Carl Zimmer reviews A Flock of Dodos, and also brings up that worrisome issue, the image of scientists in this country. Cosmic Variance is talking about image, too. Scientists get called "inarticulate", "high-handed", "stiff" and "arrogant". "Arrogant" is terribly unfair as a criticism—a bit of…

I feel like Wonkette: a reader sent along a bit of personal commentary about Deutsch, from someone who knew him at Texas A&M. It's gossip, nothing more, so take it or leave it. Well, of course, the Batt [the Aggie school paper, The Battalion] is not the Times, so there was nothing in today's…

A while back, I asked if Watterson ever did squid. I was informed by Philip Johnson (no, not that Phillip Johnson—this is the one who has not dedicated the declining years of his life to stupidity and evil) that a marvelous thing exists…The Calvin and Hobbes searchable database. You can search an…

There could be some new developments. They are reviewing the Intelligent Design creationism nonsense that was inoculated into their curricula a few years ago, and all signs indicate that they are planning to cut the infection out. A majority of members on the Board of Education of Ohio, the first…

Michael Behe wasn't too happy yesterday. One man who says he isn't planning to join in the fun on Darwin Day is Michael Behe, the 54-year-old author of "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," a critique whose 10th anniversary edition will be published in March by Simon &…

Respectful Insolence has moved. I think this was a mercy move, actually. I think the blogosphere saw that hideous spacey theme he had on the old site, and a great cry rose out to find him a home that was less of an eyesore…and the designers at Seed, who were also offended, rose to the challenge.

Chris Clarke brought this strangely twisted article to my attention. It starts out just fine, pointing out that the Intelligent Design assault on science is based on nothing but incredulity, and has the sweeping goal of destroying naturalism—not just one theory in biology, but the whole scientific…

Sometimes, a little education does win over a creationist skeptic.

That was my first thought when I read this entry, but then I noticed that the clotted, precious style didn't quite fit. My next though was a horrific one: Lileks is guest posting on Creek Running North? Say it isn't so! It's bad enough that he's there every time I open the Star Tribune! Ah, but no…

A little reminder: a look at Technorati shows me that a lot of people still haven't updated those blogrolls. I've stuck an automatic redirect on the old page, and I've also tweaked the .htaccess file to remap all the requests for rss and xml files to the new syndication file here, so it's easy to…

This has got to be a spoof site, but then I would have had to think Rapture Ready was a joke, too. Anyway, when the Rapture comes and you are ascended into heaven, you need to make sure your beloved pets are cared for, so the JesusPets service is recruiting non-Christians to take care of pets…

I know, everyone's making a big deal of this, but I honestly don't care that Cheney accidentally shot a fellow hunter. People do make mistakes, and hunting is a risky sport with dangerous devices—I simply don't see it as saying much about his character or capability that he made a potentially…

The Questionable Authority has links to sites that referenced Darwin today. It's good reading to get ready for the party—once Skatje gets home, we're breaking out the cake and ice cream.

Niles Eldredge has a fine essay online on what it means to be a Darwinist (not the term as caricatured by creationists, but merely as someone who respects the work of Darwin while acknowledging the vast increase in understanding evolution since his time). It's also useful for explaining how…