Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
May 28, 2009
I am informed by Joshua Zelinsky that two new Chick tracts are available. They are, as expected, completely insane. Here are my summaries.
You can sell your soul to Satan for wealth, women, and fame, and if you accept Jesus in your last minutes on your deathbed, you still get to go to heaven!…
May 28, 2009
It was close, but Texans did the right thing and did not confirm creationist dentist McLeroy as head of the board of education.
Now we just wait to see who the next clown Governor Perry nominates might be. Until then, though, celebrate!
May 28, 2009
He will be gay.
But will the Antichrist be a homosexual? Having seen what the Bible says of sodomy, we have no further to look than the book of Daniel, chapter 11 to find our answer. It says, "Neither shall he [Antichrist] regard... the desire of women...." As I said at the onset, I am not the…
May 28, 2009
Read his own words and see what he thinks is "the most important part" of the announcement of a major scientific milestone. He's welcome to his own religious beliefs; the problem is that he has the arrogance to think they need to be trumpeted as part of the science.
May 28, 2009
Only this is the good kind, addressing a problem with power and honesty, and providing a personal connection. This is the testimony of a victim of the Irish Catholic workhouse system, and the brutal pedophilia of corrupt priests.
I found this on the blog of one of the creators of the Father Ted…
May 28, 2009
I may have sold Francis Collins short. He may be a useful agent in the battle against creationism, but not in the way he probably intends.
The Discovery Institute - the Seattle-based headquarters of the intelligent design movement - has just launched a new website, Faith and Evolution, which asks,…
May 28, 2009
This is a song called Alone in the Universe, and it's not what I thought it was about at first. I had to laugh.
It's perfectly safe for work, unless you listen to the lyrics carefully.
May 27, 2009
Some days, I think other people must be aliens. Or I must be. For instance, there's a lot of noise right now about this article analyzing the future of information and media that, if you read the comments, you will discover that people are praising to an astonishing degree. I looked at it and saw…
May 27, 2009
I took the test, and it said,
You are a heady mix of the most evil Popes - Paul III, Benedict IX, Urban II and "Hitler's Pope" Pius XII.
Oops. I knew I shouldn't have admitted that vanilla was my favorite ice cream flavor in that last question.
May 27, 2009
A new bill has been proposed in Scarolina. Here it is:
TO AMEND ARTICLE 1, CHAPTER 29 OF TITLE 59 OF THE 1976 CODE, RELATING TO GENERAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION IN THE STATE'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS, BY ADDING SECTION 59-29-15, TO PROVIDE THAT CURRICULUM USED TO TEACH STUDENTS ABOUT…
May 27, 2009
In all the news about Obama's choice of an appointment to the Supreme Court, there's another possibility looming:
Francis Collins, the geneticist who led the Human Genome Project, is close to taking over the top spot at the National Institutes of Health, according to areport by Bloomberg News.…
May 27, 2009
We're having some major performance problems, as is obvious from all the errors you're getting when you try to post comments. We had some substantial tweaks made to the code behind the scenes that was supposed to improve performance, but actually had exactly the opposite effect — now Scienceblogs…
May 27, 2009
The gullibility of the religious is amazing…but they always seem to be rewarded with the fawning affirmations of other believers, and more publishing opportunities. Yet again, the Huffington Post flaunts its absurdl woo side with a piece of tripe from Therese Borchard claiming that angels exist.
As…
May 26, 2009
Now she has been awarded the first ever Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution.
The Stephen Jay Gould Prize is awarded annually by the Society for the Study of Evolution to recognize individuals whose sustained and exemplary efforts have advanced public understanding of…
May 26, 2009
That horrible little Christian parody site, Christwire, is attacking me! It's terrible! They have publicly made this wicked accusation: "Professor Meyers and the Pharyngula peddle off tentacle anime pornography." I am aghast. I would sue their slandering, sanctimonious little butts off, except, of…
May 26, 2009
Obama's new nominee to the Supreme Court has already made the right wing apoplectic, so she must be a good choice…and what little I've been able to read so far (I'll look deeper into it tonight when the university releases its clutches on my time) she sounds like a good choice.
May 26, 2009
The California court ruled today on the constitutionality of proposition 8, the measure that prohibited same sex marriage. Unfortunately, the court upheld the ban.
California should be embarrassed. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Vermont allow or will allow same-sex marriages, and New…
May 26, 2009
While I'm off at meetings, you could be voting to help me win Eric Hovind's iPod Touch. All you have to do is CLICK ON THIS LINK. Note that it has to be that link — it's got an imbedded code in it to let the tabulators know that the incoming click comes from me, PZ Myers, so that the Hovind crew…
May 26, 2009
The French demonstrate their bravery by putting Scientology on trial:
The case centres on a complaint made in 1998 by a woman who said she was enrolled into Scientology after members approached her in the street and persuaded her to do a personality test.
In the following months, she paid more…
May 26, 2009
I am mired in meetings today (yes, it's summer, I'm on a 9 month appointment, and I'm also on sabbatical…but necessity has roped me in yet again). I'm going to be wrestling with academic obligations almost all day, so you're going to have to entertain yourselves for a bit. Here's an open thread,…
May 25, 2009
Texas senate Democrats say they have the votes to block Don McLeroy's appointment to the board of education. Could this be the end of the creationist kook's reign of ignorance? I'm not placing any bets on this one.
(via Lonesome Mongoose)
May 25, 2009
I got home late, and have just tuned in to The Link, the grossly overyhyped History Channel documentary on Darwinius masillae. I haven't seen much of it so far, but there is good and bad. The good: lots of long closeups of the fossil itself. The bad: it's kind of slow and talky. Fortunately, I…
May 25, 2009
The boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma, and whose parents wanted to treat him with herbs, is back in Minnesota, and most importantly, in the hospital. The poor kid now has to face a painful chemotherapy regimen on top of having a lunatic for a mother — it's good that he'll get the treatment he needs, but…
May 25, 2009
A good column by James Carroll in the Boston Globe criticizes the absurd piety being peddled in the military, especially the discovery of Iraq war briefings laced with militant Christianity. He lists 7 reasons why it is a bad idea that the military has become wrapped up in religious jingo.
Single…
May 25, 2009
The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has written what Catholics should have said from the very beginning of this Irish scandal. It really didn't take much, just the recognition of failure.
The church has failed people. The church has failed children. There is no denying that. This can only be…
May 25, 2009
This is just wrong, and it's going to mislead lots of messiahs. Nowadays, if you want to sell your body, the old robes and sandals gimmick won't do the trick — Jesus really needs to be dressed in a tube top and hot pants.
May 25, 2009
It's good to be told that we strike terror into the hearts of parody web sites everywhere. Let's go stomp on their bandwidth some more.
May 25, 2009
It's called the Reincarnation Bank. You put a bunch of money in now, and then when you die and are reincarnated, your new incarnation comes to bank and gets the money back so you can start your new life with the advantage of a wad of moolah. I presume you must have to do something like memorize a…
May 24, 2009
One of those agony aunts, Dear Margo, got an amusing request for help.
Dear Margo: Our daughter started college a year ago, and we've noticed during her visits home that she's not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she'…