Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
March 28, 2009
The Florida anti-evolution bill I mentioned yesterday? It is an ex-bill.
March 28, 2009
The pope's ridicuolus and wrong stance on condoms has led to world-wide outrage, and the Vatican is going to be sent millions of condoms in response. I have an even better idea: if you're Catholic, leave the church. Why you are following an ignorant, superstitious kook as a moral authority is…
March 28, 2009
How did Texas screw up public education? It's complicated. The rational members of the board managed to exclude the 'strengths and weaknesses' language, which would have invited an immediate assault by the ignorant on a well-established scientific principle, but at the same time the ignorant…
March 27, 2009
It's terribly unfair. Not only are the paladins of evolution handsomer, wittier, more charming, and with a deeper grasp of the truth than the orc-like hordes of creationism, but even our ancillary skills are wielded with more effortless panache than our opponents' primary talents. Here's a…
March 27, 2009
Texas is getting all this attention — they've got Don McLeroy! Reviews of curricula with creationists chipping away at them word by word! Insanity reigns, and everyone just acts as if it were standard operating procedure!
I think Florida was feeling neglected, so that state slipped in another…
March 27, 2009
Texans need some wise advice. KTBX asks, How do you think science should be taught in Texas schools?.
Evolution only - 34.50%
Creationism only - 16.83%
Combination of both - 48.67%
Total Responses -600
Those numbers don't look quite right to me. I'm about to get on a plane and fly to Minneapolis…is…
March 27, 2009
I was premature in mentioning the good news from the Texas hearings: the situation is much messier than I thought. The 'strengths and weaknesses' amendment lost on points, but the creationists responded with a flurry of new amendments to various pieces of the science standards — most of them look…
March 27, 2009
The Pope, under the spell of infallibility and religious delusion, recently declared that condoms "increase the problem" of HIV transmission in Africa. This would be news to the CDC.
Latex condoms, when used consistently and correctly, are highly effective in preventing heterosexual sexual…
March 27, 2009
Sepia peterseni
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
March 27, 2009
The Kwok has been mailing all over the place. He has complained to facebook, and to the Panda's Thumb. He has written to CFI-Michigan in advance of my visit here, telling them to throw a pie in my face. I have heard from quite a few friends in the scientific community that Kwok has written to them…
March 26, 2009
The effort to insert the 'strengths and weaknesses" nonsense into the Texas science curriculum by creationists has been defeated. That's the good news.
The bad news is that it was a real squeaker, defeated by a 7:7 vote. It was a ridiculous notion, and it's similarly ridiculous that it was even…
March 26, 2009
Scientists are baffled by his ability to survive. After the recent discovery of transitional fossil octopods, I predicted that creationists would abuse the discovery…and Denyse O'Leary fulfilled my prediction of stupidity by claiming that the fossils showed that cephalopods hadn't evolved at all.…
March 26, 2009
Another revelation in the tragic Montanaplane crash endorsed by anti-choice freaks: one of the women on the plane was five months pregnant. If their deity is responsible for these deaths, not only is their god an abortionist, he's one of those hacks who butchers the mother in the process…but…
March 26, 2009
One of our more popular commenters now has a couple of more letters he can tag on the end of his name in addition to the Order of the Molly. You can cheer loudly here — I don't recommend going up to his place in Boston and ringing the doorbell, since he might be recovering from the celebration…
March 26, 2009
There was a good suggestion in the comments that I have a thread dedicated to suggestions for a new car. I do have criteria: it should be amphibious, it must have tentacles, and the ability to fire a cloud of ink is desirable; it must also at least have mounts in place for a bank of lasers. I need…
March 25, 2009
I had a harrowing morning. I got up at 5 to make the long drive to the airport, only to discover that last night, after several days of rain, it had frozen. And snowed. Uh-oh, you say…at least in my usual caution I had given myself 5 hours to make a 3 hour drive, so I figured I'd have no problem.…
March 24, 2009
There was an appalling and tragic plane crash in Montana: 14 people were killed, 7 of them children.
Tom Hagler, a mechanic at the Oroville airport, told The Sacramento Bee that he allowed several children ages 6 to 10 to use the airport bathroom before they boarded the doomed plane.
"There were a…
March 24, 2009
At least, that was my first thought on viewing this rampant graffito.
March 24, 2009
More than five years ago, I was griping about the pretense of compatibility between science and religion, prompted by an otherwise good site at the University of California Berkeley that offered the usual pablum:
Science and religion deal with different things. Science tries to figure out how…
March 24, 2009
Everyone keeps sending me this photo from FAIL blog. I think it's mislabeled.
This is not a failure. This is something working for once. Every church ought to have "Danger!" signs slapped on it. It's a success when churches are clearly marked, exceeded only by those wonderful moments when they are…
March 24, 2009
The Texas Board of Education is led by Don McLeroy, a creationist dentist and plagiarist who believes that the earth is only 6000 years old.
Just stop there and savor it. The man who wants to dictate what all of the children in one of the largest educational systems in the country should learn…
March 24, 2009
I'm sure you all remember that plane crash in the Hudson a while back, in which all the passengers survived thanks to the commendable competence of the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger, and the crew. What impressed the atheist community, too, was that this was not a case where the crew credited some…
March 24, 2009
Last week, I wrote about the spectacular Cretaceous octopus fossils, and I made a blatant prediction.
Accustomed as I am to the workings of the minds of creationists, though, I'm sad to say that I also immediately saw how this find will be abused. I guarantee you that Harun Yahya is grabbing these…
March 24, 2009
And I like that. More snail porn was sent my way; this one I can't blithely throw up on the page because, in addition to an extravagantly naked snail, it also has an unclothed mammal…and for some reason, some people freak out over exposed mammalian skin. So warning, warning, warning, nsfw, grow up…
March 23, 2009
It's too bad my Viking blood does not confer upon me the ability to read Norse, because the Norwegian media is lighting up with the tale of a school that is denying evolution in the enlightened land of Scandinavia. I've found one account in English, and at least it looks like the creationists have…
March 23, 2009
…and suddenly people everywhere are sending you images from their snail and slug porn collections. You are all just plain weird.
March 23, 2009
It's been confirmed: members of the Oklahoma legislature are investigating the suspicious circumstances of Richard Dawkins' lecture. After all, what possible excuse could UO have for inviting a known rabblerouser who doesn't happen to believe in gods? Other than his reputation as a world-famous…
March 23, 2009
I'm not the only one who gets crazy email: Pam Spaulding got an excellent example of grade A wackaloonery, and at first I was a little jealous, until I looked more closely. It's the same mail I got back in February! I'm still the champ!
It looks like somebody taught the poor fellow about paragraphs…
March 23, 2009
For the past few years, I have been receiving postcards from Theo Nelson regularly. They are lovely and colorful handmade cards with a poem on the back. I got another one today — all the others are lined up on a wall in my office — and I thought it was about time to mention it. It's Spring again!…
March 23, 2009
I've received a few queries about the end of the Battlestar Galactica series, and I can't offer an opinion — I didn't watch it. Since there seems to be enough fans here, though, I'll turn you loose on it. Great? Sucked? Eh?
I didn't watch it because I haven't watched much of the series at all.…