pharyngula

I was told all the time as a kid that you mustn't swallow chewing gum, because it just piles up in your guts and clogs up all the works and you will die. They lied to me — it just passes through the gut like anything else. So please stop sticking your unpleasant wads under desktops or spitting them…

A while back, I gave a keynote talk at an evo-devo conference, and one of the things I told them was that public outreach was important, and one tool to get your message out was blogging. Telling that to a mob of working scientists who have other pressing matters occupying them is dangerous, but I…

Bill Donohue will be so relieved. Here's a story about a youn girl being raped, her assailant protected by the church, and the girl herself getting all the blame…and it's the Baptists! Tina Anderson was raped by Ernest Willis, a Trinity Baptist Church member, when she was 15, and got pregnant. She…

The American Humanist Association is making a push to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the American military. They want you to write a letter to your representatives supporting the repeal. Here's another reason besides simple common decency to end a discriminatory practice: It will…

Sepioteuthis lessoniana Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

This is good news! After the outrage over a prior policy statement, the AAP has revised and clarified their position on female genital mutilation: The American Academy of Pediatrics has rescinded a controversial policy statement raising the idea that doctors in some communities should be able to…

A Muslim cleric thought he'd discovered a loophole in Islamic religious law that would allow the restrictions on Muslim women in the workplace to be loosened. He said that if a woman fed a male colleague "directly from her breast" at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be…

There was an anti-vaccination rally yesterday in Chicago — boring and silly! What's more interesting is that Women Thinking Free (a fabulous new organization) had a counter-demonstration. You can read an account or two or three of the event from the rational perspective; it sounds like the anti-…

A couple of years ago, I sat down one morning, bemused by yet another bit of empty apologetics from god's sycophants, and banged out a short bit of amusement called The Courtier's Reply. It got picked up everywhere, to my surprise. I mean, seriously, I have to confess that I whipped that out in 20…

As a fan of The Order of the Stick, I was pleased to see this last panel of the latest strip. "Not surprisingly, ethical concerns cannot overcome the siren's lure of a triceratops ride" could almost be my motto.

Nelson McCausland, Northern Ireland's blithering idiot in charge of culture, now gets his own poll. Should creationism be featured in museum exhibitions? Yes 46% No 54% Too bad they don't specify what kind of museum. A museum of psychopathology, perhaps, or a clown museum…I could say yes to that.…

We haven't been covering the alternative theory. Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

Well, more like great-great-many-times-great-aunt of all squid, but it's still a spectacular fossil. Behold the Cambrian mollusc, Nectocaris pteryx. (Click for larger image)Reconstruction of Nectocaris pteryx. This was one of those confusing, uninterpretable Cambrian animals, represented by only…

I've been receiving a lot of mail lately urging me to pharyngulate the America Speaking Out site, but when I saw what it was about, I held off…I could tell what kind of self-screwing it was going to be. Here's the premise: the Republicans saw, in their remote and confused sort of way, that the…

The Culture Minister for Northern Ireland is a born-again Christian kook who has decided that the Ulster Museum is insufficiently respectful of the notion that a magic man in the sky poofed the universe into existence in 4004 BC — the farmers on the plains of Mehrgarh and the potters of…

While the parties responsible struggle to shift the blame, the Gulf oil spill has reached the shore, as this tragically long photo essay shows. There is a cost to these risky ventures in offshore drilling, and they are not adequately paid by the companies doing the dirty work. Those who would…

Some of you may know that I have a Wikipedia page. Others may know that I also have a page on Conservapædia, which helpfully links to this site with a warning, "Non-family-friendly content warning" (it must be effective, I get almost no traffic from it). Now, though, I have discovered a page that…

The anti-vax loons are having a rally in Grant Park, in Chicago, today at 3-5pm. The wretched fraud Andrew Wakefield will be speaking there, encouraging more parents to make their children vulnerable to pathogens and to act as vectors for the spread of disease. Some people are taking action and…

Dracunculus vulgaris

We have a wicked, psychotic cat who went insane during a time when we were fostering other cats for the humane society — some cats just don't tolerate novelty and company — and ever since he's been plotting to kill me. The only reason we're keeping him around is that I'm pretty sure he's the feline…

A parenting magazine is running a poll to determine how many bad parents are out there. It looks like there are a lot. Where do you stand on immunization? For (38%) Against (61%) Don't know what to think (1%) There are almost 8,000 votes there, so this will be a tough one. Start clicking. …unless…

Jeffrey Jena, one of those right-wing kooks, is upset about something terribly traumatic that happened to him. Someone unfriended him on Facebook for being a wingnut! Don't you know that lefty liberals are supposed to always pretend to be friends with the goons and thugs of the right? Have any of…

A Florida teacher was assaulted by two fellow teachers…who splashed her with holy water because she is an atheist. This is a serious concern — they're on to us. What am I going to do if someone flings holy water onto me? I might start smoking and my flesh will melt and then I'll disintegrate with…

Just go to the linen closet and get a towel right now, and everything will be OK.

Some men have a particularly oblivious sense of privilege — these are the kinds of evil freaks who murder their children at the prospect that their ex-wife might get custody. The fact that they are men is used to blind them to the fact that there are these other human beings called women out there…

People are still asking me to come speak at various places, and I'm just going to have to put my foot down. Here's my calendar for the next few months: Oslo on 16 June Copenhagen on 18-20 June Lindau on 26 June-1 July Minneapolis and Convergence/Skepchick Con 1-3 July Vancouver, BC on 30…

Maybe I should have spent more time there on my trips to Rochester and Syracuse — it seems that region was also a hotbed of freethought. And look there's an Ingersoll Museum in Dresden!

The Paul Kurtz I remember was the serious, scholarly fellow at the forefront of the atheist movement, who wasn't shy about saying it the way it was. The New Kurtz is a more timid observer, who wants to criticize religion mildly without giving offense, and is more concerned about policing his fellow…

We really hurt the true believers of Islam with Draw Mohammed Day. They are angry and frustrated, and they want to strike back against secularists equally well, in ways that will also infuriate us. To their credit, though, some realize that threatening to decapitate heretics isn't exactly smart and…

It's how I've always imagined Darwin's life, anyway. Dana Carvey is "DARWIN" - watch more funny videos Heh. "My name is DarWIN, not DarLOSE."