pharyngula

To return to Unscientific America again, I hardly touched on chapter 8, where they express their dismay at those uppity "New Atheists". I am not going to address his personal criticisms of me — there's no point, you obviously know I think he's completely wrong, and the uncharitable will simply…

Dunbar is the creationist, anti-education kook that Governor Perry of Texas is considering putting in charge of the state board of education. Slacktivist explains the problem with this — putting someone who wants to destroy the public education system in charge of the public education system is…

All the cool kids are currently attending the big Darwin festival in Cambridge, which sounds like it has been a lot of informative fun. A couple of the sessions, though, are funded by the Templeton Foundation, which sounds much less fun. Fortunately, Dan Dennett has taken a bullet for the team and…

Some Irish workmen were cutting down a tree, and lo and behold, the stump supposedly resembles the Virgin Mary, although how they found a hymen in that lump, I don't know. The real source of amusement, though, is the way it has put the local Catholic church representatives in a dither. Local…

You're the land of happy stoners, gay marriage, shopping for sex, abortion, and death with dignity…but worst of all, you are "militantly secular". Don't worry, though — while Fox News treats you as an object of horrible fascination, I think I love you.

And that's not good. John Lynch rips into Dembski's views on Alfred Russell Wallace, and Dembski's mistakes are legion and major. Wallace is an interesting guy, and it's always a shame when Discovery Institute propagandists start mangling yet another aspect of history, philosophy, and science.

Sure, you're jealous that I won a prize off of all your back-breaking mouse clicking. So here's your chance to win $100 for just clicking a few keys in the right order. It's a creative writing contest, in which you have to come up with the most original and amusing creation myth. Just think — you…

An anonymous contributor, signing himself "An Opinionated Englishman", took umbrage at some passing mention of Lipton tea that I made a while back, and sent me a couple of boxes of genuine English tea from some place called Whittard of Chelsea. Whoa. There really is a huge difference. This is…

Fox News really needs to fire this idiot. Look at this clip where Brian Kilmeade is, for some unknown reason, trying to dismiss a study that found that married people were at a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease. I have no knowledge of the study, but his reasons for dismissing its applicability to…

Oh, great. He's been appointed by Obama. He'll do a fine job…he's a competent administrator. I think we can trust him to manage the institution smoothly. We can also trust him to drape Jesus over every major announcement, use the office as a platform for promoting religiosity, and otherwise taint…

Look what came in the mail today: It's an iPod Touch from Eric Hovind! It's impossible to read in this photo, but it has a nice engraving on the back: the Creation Minute logo, and this message. To PZ Myers In hopes that your quest for TRUTH will end with God. The CSE Team Isn't that nice? I'd…

The Canadian prime minister was caught on video pocketing a cracker, and of course the media are in a tizzy over this silly and inconsequential nonsense. I have a suggestion. Send it to me, Mr Harper. I'm one of the few experts in this world at professional cracker disposal.

Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum were right about one thing. They sent me a copy of their new book, Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), with a strange request: "We hope that like Dr. Coyne, you will suspend judgment until reading the book…

I'm going to be speaking at the Secular Student Alliance conference on 8 August, and before that, you may recall, I announced that we were going on a little field trip to Ken Ham's bunco joint in Kentucky, on Friday, 7 August. We're trying to organize a bit, so SSA sent me the notice below.…

Remember the Viet Nam war? I know, we've been suffering with the most recent military cock-up, but it's still worth looking back at what evil old Tricky Dick was up to. A new batch of tape transcripts from White House discussions about the war have been released, and wouldn't you know it — Nixon…

Forgive me, readers, but Madeline Bunting has raised up her tiny, fragile pin-head again, and I must address her non-arguments once more. Well, not her non-arguments, actually, but the same tedious non-arguments the fans of superstition constantly trundle out. She was at some strange conference…

And it features Lucy! Note the book she's reading at the beginning.

This is so stupid it hurts. Check out the Missing Universe Creation Museum: it's got all the usual creationist jabber. No transitional fossils, all mutations are harmful, and my favorite, prominently quoted, "If you don't believe God created all living things, male and female, in 6 days…How many…

If Spanish isn't your preferred language, you can also read some of my posts (and lots of others) in Polish.

For the Spanish-speaking readers, this post has been translated into ¿Qué Debe Pensar Un Científico Sobre La Religión?.

I just got this note from Richard Dawkins, who is attending the Cambridge Darwin Festival. Robert Hinde is the elder statesman of the science of Ethology and one one of the most respected figures in British biology. I just met him at the big Cambridge Darwin Festival. Robert had agreed to speak in…

All right, commenters, you aren't doing your job. I get enough creationist nonsense in my private email, you are the ones who are supposed to smash the creationist lackwits who are babbling in the comments here. Now one of them, this fellow Grant, is apparently unsatisfied with the drubbing you…

Orthodox Jews are rioting in Jerusalem. The reason: because the city allows a parking lot to remain open on Saturday, which means people are able to drive on their holy day, which they consider sacred. Anne Barker was there to record the event as a journalist, and she switched on her recorder to…

It's the Arizona electorate's moment of shame. The earth has been here for 6000 years and we haven't destroyed it yet, so we don't need no stinkin' laws to protect the environment!

I know! He's dead! But that's one corpse that you know isn't going to rest easily. First, the ghouls are out in force. "psychic" ghoul James Van Praagh says he's been having conversations with Jackson's ghost; ghoul enabler Oprah Winfrey has quickly snatched him up to appear on her show and make…

On 11 July in St Paul, the Irreverend Singleton will be presenting a two-act play titled "On Patriarchs and Penises", which promises to be delightfully rude and will almost certainly give the accommodationists the vapors. Park describes the scene: "The stage is black and bare except for a pulpit, a…

I don't think I'd trust this Latvian money-lender to stay in business for long — he's giving small loans and asking for your soul as the only collateral. He doesn't employ collection agents, using only fear and superstition to get people to pay him back, which might work for a little while…but only…

It's July already? Time to tally up the votes in the last Molly nomination thread and induct yet another regular commenter into the Order of the Molly. The acknowledged worthy for the month of May is Kel. About time, too, his name keeps coming up month after month, and someone is always jumping in…

Yes, Texas could. After ditching creationist dentist Don McLeroy as head of the state board of education, Governor Rick Perry is now considering Cynthia Dunbar for the job. Dunbar is the author of a book called One Nation Under God, and despises public education…just the person to put in charge of…

…was the SkepchickCon in Minneapolis this past weekend. This was a consequence of some extremely ugly last minute flight rearrangements from Germany that brought me home significantly later than I had planned (although Lufthansa did helpfully tell me I could get back earlier if I would just buy…