Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
February 8, 2009
Down House in Kent has been closed for renovations, but it's been opened to the public again. Take a tour of the place online — it sounds like there were some significant additions to the exhibits. Which means, of course, that I have to go back again soon.
February 8, 2009
How strange: The Economist is running this graph, of people's acceptance of evolutionary theory by country.
Look familiar? It should. It seems to be some of the same data used in this well known figure (not from New Scientist, by the way, but Science):
Miller JD, Scott EC, Okamoto S (2006) Public…
February 8, 2009
How do these yahoos get elected? We've got another dumb-ass bill about to emerge from the state of Florida:
State Sen. Stephen Wise of Jacksonville announced through an article in the Florida Times Union that he plans to file a bill this legislative session to require evolution to be balanced with…
February 8, 2009
Italy is experiencing its own version of the Terry Schiavo case. A woman, Eluana Englaro, was in a car crash 17 years ago that caused catastrophic brain damage — she's been in a vegetative state ever since, and the family has been engaged in a legal fight for many years to pull the plug and allow…
February 7, 2009
Sunday morning at 9am Central, tune in to Atheist talk radio for a pre-Darwin Day discussion. This week, they've got that wild man, Greg Laden, talking evolution, and Don Luce of the Bell Museum talking about their special Darwin Day events.
February 7, 2009
If you want to know where the current ridiculous anti-vaccination scare came from, there's one well known source: Andrew Wakefield. He published a paper in 1998 that claimed there was a link between vaccination and autism that was a popular sensation, and had a dramatic effect.
Despite involving…
February 7, 2009
I got a request to mention this, and how can I not? A young boy is battling leukemia, and his family is struggling with the costs. They've had to put up an online donation box in the hope of some relief.
If you've got a little to spare (I know, this is not a good time in the history of our economy…
February 7, 2009
Professor Denis Rancourt of the University of Ottawa has taken a radical step in his teaching practices: he tells all the students in his classes that they automatically get an A+. For this, among other infractions of convention, he has been suspended with pay from his teaching position pending…
February 7, 2009
Not much, I'm afraid. The weirdly awful paper has been retracted, but we still don't know how it got published in the first place. NCSE Reports has an excellent summary of the affair, but the conclusion is still highly unsatisfactory (the conclusion of the event, that is, not the summary, which is…
February 7, 2009
The answer is in: it's Howard Dean.
That strange sound you hear popping in the distance is the percussive explosion of wingnut crania everywhere.
I think it's an excellent choice. Dean is a smart guy who gives excellent speeches, he's a centrist-to-conservative Democrat so he's not a political…
February 6, 2009
I've always considered Doctors Without Borders to be a commendable, even noble, organization. So I'm a little bit shocked to see this new group capitalizing on their good name: Homeopaths Without Borders. They've got to be joking.
It is our main aim to transfer homeopathy to those countries, where…
February 6, 2009
I know! It's hard to believe! Why, any of the riff-raff can just charge in and start a blog anymore. You write a book or a few, do some internationally recognized research in evolution, and suddenly you get cocky and think you have the talent to write a blog. Back in the day when I started in this…
February 6, 2009
Lawyers must love Ben. All he has to do is speak the truth, and wham, the kooks charge in. He recently posted a clip from a radio program in which lunatic anti-vaccination nut Jeni Barnett said many stupid things, so she rushed to silence her own words. Can't have the fact that she's spluttering…
February 6, 2009
Forbes has published a collection of pseudoscientific nonsense, giving free rein to the hacks and frauds of the Discovery Institute, along with a few other crackpots. There is no hint given that these are marginal characters with no connection to modern science, who are following an ideological…
February 6, 2009
Read this: wherever Obama has proposed stimulus spending for science, conservative senators propose chopping back massively. The increase in support for NSF? Gone completely. NASA's boost? Cut in half. And on and on.
These cuts have not passed yet, but they will soon if you don't howl at your…
February 6, 2009
When a blogger named Zeno proudly announces that his blog, Halfway There, is about to reach the landmark of 250,000 hits, doesn't that imply that he'll never ever reach 500,000 hits?
February 6, 2009
Herbert West for HHS is a truly inspired choice.
February 6, 2009
"I am not a number — I am a baby cuttlefish!"
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
February 5, 2009
I was just sent this slightly retouched photo of Titanoboa, and it bothers me. There's something missing.
No, not a caption, although that might help. What it really needs is…a second panel! What will happen in this scene just a few minutes later? I can picture it in my mind's eye, no problem.
February 5, 2009
Just ask Richard Mullens, who has not said he is an atheist, but was suspected of being one…and lost his job as a teacher for that reason.
Then on January 7th, a student in my classroom in second period left my class, went to the Principal's office, and told him that there was an inappropriate…
February 5, 2009
Here's a subjective list of the top 30 atheist/agnostic blogs. There are a few oddities in there, though: Fred Clark is going to be surprised to learn that he has left the Christian faith, and The Panda's Thumb tries to avoid the theist/atheist wars altogether.
Still, the list can't be all bad…
February 5, 2009
Just wait — this one will be featured in some cheesy Sci-Fi channel creature feature in a few months. Paleontologists have dug up a fossil boa that lived 58-60 million years ago. They haven't found a complete skeleton, but there's enough to get an estimate of the size. Look at these vertebrae!
a,…
February 5, 2009
Sometimes these kooks reveal that they even read the blog…somewhat obsessively and angrily. This one seems to be a follow-up to yesterday's email, and I think he's unhappy that I put up that other crank's letter and not his. I'm sorry, but I don't even remember what his previous letter's point was…
February 4, 2009
The Darwin Day website has a calendar of events, and you can search for cool things that might be happening near you next week. Except…well, apparently the site organizers aren't very discriminating about who and what can be posted there. Like this…
Darwin Conference (Free)
Location: 3800 S.…
February 4, 2009
Try searching for a "magic shop" in Queensland in the Australian white pages. They have a lot of them.
(via Randi)
February 4, 2009
Way back in early January, I suggested that we vote for one of the Countess's horror stories in an online contest. You will be pleased to hear that she won "Best Short Horror Story"!
You may recall that I also suggested that she reward Pharyngula's participation with a little story of our own, so…
February 4, 2009
Nothing new here, just more of the same. I thought this time I'd insert my reactions into the stream of a fairly typical creationist letter that I received this morning. Really, people: you may think you're very clever and persuasive, but I hear all of this same stuff every single day, and you've…
February 4, 2009
This is curious: apparently, the DVD of Expelled now comes with a little book of quotes which are supposed to support its thesis. Only they don't. Somebody ought to scan these in so we could all share the hilarity.
Not me, alas. Not only didn't I get to see the movie, the makers haven't even had…
February 4, 2009
Feel my pain. Listen to this ignorant young woman lie and lie and lie about evolution: Charles Darwin was a theologian who just guessed and didn't do any science, there are no transitional fossils, the cell is very complex and therefore could not evolve, yadda yadda yadda. She has been grossly…
February 4, 2009
My teaching schedule this semester is a major time-suck; I'm teaching genetics and all of its associated labs (you really don't want to know how much prep time goes into setting up fly labs), I'm doing some major revision of the content this year, and I've got this asymmetric schedule that packs…