pharyngula

Allen MacNeill makes an interesting observation: those little eruptions of ID creationism on college campuses, the Idea Centers, all seem to be moribund, and he pronounces the college ID movement dead. I quite agree. I think Intelligent Design as a whole is a zombie philosophy at this point — it's…

Andrew Sullivan is taking votes for his Moore Award — and I'm on it. This is his prize for "divisive, bitter and intemperate left-wing rhetoric", named after Michael Moore. He clearly intends it to be disparaging, but I find it to be a curiously misapplied award. First, it's named for Michael Moore…

If I weren't so heavily invested in the cephalopods, siphonophores would be a great alternative.

At last, biologists get some respect from xkcd…and it features cephalopods. Seriously, no other branch of science has anything as wicked cool as the diversity of life to play with. By the way, the artist reveals his physics bias when he has the cuttlefish crudely zapping their targets with boring…

Rolling Stone has one weird story: The Legend of Master Legend. It's about people who think they are superheroes, right down to donning costumes and calling their run-down suburban ranch house a secret lair. These people are deluded, all right, but they seem mostly harmless, and the story is…

Even though we couldn't be there in the flesh, we did watch the ceremony over the web…and there's our boy, receiving his diploma. Yay!

The outraged email from creationist fans of Ken Ham and the Creation "Museum" continues apace. Most of it is forgettable and repetitive — I'm usually accused of being against free speech, as if I had somehow barred the doors of that temple of foolishness in Kentucky, or had personally gagged Ken…

Sunday morning, 9am Central time: Atheists Talk radio asks whether atheists can now relax, since Obama will soon be in office. I think you know the answer to that one: no. We'll have to tune in to see what Lori Lipman Brown has to say!

We're learning more about what Obama is actually going to do in office, and while there are some negatives, right now the positives outweigh them. Let's get the bad decisions out of the way first. Rick Warren, professional homophobe, bigot, and smirking airhead, will be prominently promoted in the…

It was not an auspicious start to the day. Before we could even leave for my son's commencement at UW Madison, we had to clear the 6"-8" of snow that had fallen overnight from our driveway. Then we had to flounder through unplowed roads to the highway. Then we discovered near-blizzard conditions of…

The pharynguloid hordes continue their reign of terror, marching through foreign lands and laying waste to their polls. Today, we crush Norway. An article about a faith healer wants to know whether you think this guy is a: Placebo (23%) Helbreder (healer) (61%) Overtro (superstition) (9%) Lureri (…

I'm a pilgrim today, traveling far to the east to the mysterious land of Wis-con-sin, where I shall spend some time in adoration of the son. My middle child, the cute and monkey-like Connlann, is graduating from the University of Wisconsin Madison tomorrow, with a degree in English. Hooray for the…

So a wingnut gets a cartoonish version of religious history: Ritualistic Baal worship, in sum, looked a little like this: Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human…

A reader sent me this caricature. I do make a rather grim looking cleric, don't I? Still, it's an interesting proposal. I think we need a pope who would blow raspberries at the rituals and laugh at the beliefs, and I can see myself thwapping Bill Donohue with that stick a few times. Is there an…

Lack of self-awareness is a tragic disease running rampant in the fundagelical community. Here's an amusing instance: what happens if you tell children about Santa, and then they find out the truth? Why, they go on a terrorist rampage of murder and mayhem, of course. Right. I'm sure you all…

Since everyone is sending me this link, I'll go ahead and mention the amusing comparisons between various religions and programming languages…however, I am deeply offended. They left out the greatest programming languages of all, Pascal (especially Object Pascal) and Modula-2. What's with all this…

Now someone else is giving away a free book to commenters — it's like Christmas or something. Leave a comment at Domestic Father and maybe you'll win a copy of Ben Goldacre's Bad Science(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which is a really good deal, since that book isn't yet available in the US, and I've…

This one is for the godless among us: a survey on Coming Out as an Atheist. It's a little longer than the previous one, I'm afraid.

Help the National Academies out: What topics in science, engineering, and medicine matter most to you? The National Academies are interested in developing useful and engaging print and web-based educational materials on the topics that you'd like to learn more about. They invite you to participate…

(from Mark Whittaker's personal collection of dive photos)

Dance, everyone!

We need more monkey music.

Perhaps you have been pondering the meaning of the new traditional greeting, Happy Monkey! (important usage note: it is not Merry Monkey, nor is it Happy Monkey Day. It is simply "Happy Monkey", full stop. Trying to change the phrase means you are waging war on the Monkey, and you know how they…

No, the Minnesota recount is not over yet, and we still don't know whether Franken or Coleman will be our senator. At last word, Coleman held a 192 vote lead, but thousands of ballots are awaiting a verdict on eligibility from the state Supreme Court. It's the most mind-numbingly tedious process…

It's easy — just follow the link from The Countess's blog, read about weird supernatural monsters, leave a comment, and you're entered in a drawing for an anthology of erotic horror stories. Yeah, erotic horror. I think it's supposed to leave you all hot and bothered in a state of tension … not…

Yeah, they've got us there.

Some online news organization has revivified the Cincinnati Zoo/Creation "museum" controversy, and they have blamed me for it all. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate the credit, but really, it must be shared with the thousands of people who responded with their letters, and particularly with the…

We have a long history in developmental biology of studying the most amazing freaks of nature — damage to developing organisms can produce astonishingly ghastly results as the embryo tries to regulate and recover, yielding results that are almost normal. There's even a whole subdiscipline of the…

It's time for all the Germans to speak up and say hello! We have a silly poll on a German site: Do you believe in the effectiveness of alternative medicine? "Ja" is leading 64:36. How can this be? The "Nein"s need reinforcements!

This is not an auspicious beginning. Guess who is going to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration? None other than the smilin' face of right-wing fundamentalism, Rick Warren. As we've pointed out several times before, in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell…