Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
August 23, 2009
Brace yourselves: Glenn Moon is plainly mentally ill, but what are we to make of Pastor Steve Anderson? He has a job, he has a congregation, people actually respect him…but if you go to that link, you will hear the most astonishingly deranged, hateful, creepy nonsense in his sermons.
It's all bible…
August 23, 2009
Livonia, Michigan (Orac's home town!) is having an election for city council. This is not newsworthy. What is amusing, however, is the candidacy of Glenn Moon, who is running on the issues of abortion, littering, and paying city employees a salary of $1 per year plus the love of Jesus Christ. He is…
August 22, 2009
Governor Charlie Crist of Florida has been sending prayers off to Israel every year…and now he wants to claim responsibility for averting hurricanes. Isn't that just so sweet? Now you can let Florida know what you think of their governor in an extremely objective and scientifically valid online…
August 22, 2009
His recent "peer-reviewed paper" has prompted one giant to look down and notice: Joe Felsenstein gives it a brief dismissal. Dembski has apparently graduated from "not even wrong" to "irrelevant"!
August 22, 2009
In their national convention in Minneapolis, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to allow gay pastors. Good for them.
I guess that lightning bolt that struck the convention center was a warning from god to the intolerant conservative wing of the church that he loves his sexy homosexual…
August 22, 2009
Last night, I asked for a copy of an article (I have plenty now, thanks!) that was getting a lot of press. The reason I was looking for it is two-fold: the PR looked awful, expressing some annoying cliches about evolution, but the data looked interesting, good stuff that I was glad to see done.…
August 21, 2009
So…anybody with an institutional subscription care to send me a copy of this paper? My university's subscription only lets me see articles in this journal after they've aged for a year.
Smith HF, Fisher RE, Everett ML, Thomas AD, Randal Bollinger R, Parker W (2009) Comparative anatomy and…
August 21, 2009
I hope not, but they have filed one of those ridiculously broad, sweeping patents that covers a big chunk of basic techniques in the field:
The patent, filed by Microsoft researcher Steve Ozer in July 2007 and recently discovered by a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin, claims…
August 21, 2009
The Illinois Family Institute — they actually italicize the word in their name to emphasize the hypocrisy — is out to get Hemant Mehta. He's an atheist, you know! And a school teacher! Shun him! You've got to appreciate the quality sliming while acknowledging his right (for now, until they get more…
August 21, 2009
A short letter in this week's Science echoes a point I made in my last article: lying to students will not win them over to your cause. It's what will eventually lead to the defeat of creationism, which prompts them to lie ever more in order to drown out that damning evidence.
I was always a…
August 21, 2009
That Answers in Genesis crackpot, Terry Mortenson, is speaking on "Millions of Years" at the Creation "Museum". Those of us who visited that circus of charlatanry know that this is one of their obsessions — the idea that the earth is more than 6000 years old is one of the wrecking balls atheists…
August 21, 2009
It is strange to discover one's words suddenly appearing on t-shirts.
August 21, 2009
His recent "peer-reviewed paper" gets scrutinized, and is judged: boring, trivial, and pretentious. Just like the author!
August 21, 2009
(via Woods Hole Polar Discovery)
August 20, 2009
Barney Frank leads by example.
(via Decrepit Old Fool)
August 20, 2009
Speaking of intellectual cowardice from creationists, we have another shining example: Pastor Tom Estes. You remember Pastor Tom; squirrelly fella who darted up to shake my hand at the Creation "Museum" before running away to hide behind the creationist staff, shrill commenter, proud owner of a…
August 20, 2009
Unbelievable. Dembski is bragging about getting a peer-reviewed paper published — in IEEE Transactions, so not a biology journal, and it's a paper about search algorithms — and he misrepresents Dawkins again. He just had to toss in his garbled version of the "Methinks it is a weasel" program in…
August 20, 2009
We had summer thunderstorms and a tornado touchdown in Minneapolis yesterday, and the convention center was slightly damaged. At the same time, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America was having their national convention there. You know what this means?
God hates Christians. Repent!
No, wait,…
August 20, 2009
We have excuses to party every day: today, H.P. Lovecraft would be 129 119 years old. He'd be pretty darned rugose and squamous if he were still alive!
August 19, 2009
It's the 100th anniversary (we can't say "birthday" for a deposit laid down half a billion years ago, I don't think) of Walcott's discovery of the Burgess Shale formation in British Columbia. I'm not quite sure what one does to celebrate on such a momentous occasion…maybe someone has a suggestion.
August 19, 2009
You know the bus signs in Iowas that read, "Don't believe in God? You are not alone"? One bus driver refused to do her job because "the message is against her Christian faith," and was then suspended.
Somebody tell me what precisely in that message is against anyone's faith? It simply asks whether…
August 19, 2009
DingoJack sent me this — made me snort my beverage, you cruel fiends.
(Click for larger image)
August 19, 2009
Uh-oh. Reed Cartwright asks specifically that we don't game this poll, but doesn't having me link to it automatically bias the results? Well maybe not. It's a poll to vote on your favorite geological specimen in a small set of photos. There's nothing there that could selectively stir the godless…
August 19, 2009
They're going to have a "Science" Fair at the Creation "Museum", which seems extremely cruel. Little kids with some enthusiasm for science are going to show up at that circus and be misled about what science actually is, and see their careers stunted before they even begin.
But let's be charitable…
August 19, 2009
Come on, if Texas can open a Camp Quest, what's your state's excuse?
There's also a nice article with a poll on the new godless camp — it's mostly positive, but they do go out of their way to get a quote from a dissenter.
But Dr. Darrell Bock of the Dallas Theological Seminary doesn't believe that…
August 19, 2009
There is a bill pending in the Bahamas which would outlaw marital rape, and it is facing a lot of opposition. There is a common theme in the arguments against it: see if you can figure out what it is.
"It is ridiculous for them to try to make that a law, because I don't think a man can rape his own…
August 18, 2009
Bill Donohue has a new target: he has taken out an ad in Variety, demanding that Penn and Teller be fired, because they've been irreverent and sacrilegious towards the holy Catholic church.
On August 27, Showtime, owned by CBS, will feature a vicious assault on Catholics. In the season
finale of…
August 18, 2009
This is the skull of an arthrodire, an armored placoderm from the Devonian.
Somehow, 20 foot long predatory fish with a mouth lined with razor-edged bony shears has never made me think of sexy time…until I ran across this comparison image.
Oh, schwiiing. It really doesn't take much to get a…
August 18, 2009
I hear about freethought student groups popping up on college campuses everywhere — and that includes southern campuses, where the stereotypes are the fiercest. I haven't been hearing much out of the strange state of Utah, though, until now: students planning their school year in Logan, Utah really…