Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
October 22, 2008
Some people like to claim that religion is here to stay and we can never hope to change it.
Yes, we can.
October 22, 2008
I am well aware that lately there have been several horrifying blog posts here, of a nature that might make a rational liberal want to hide under her bed or move to Scandinavia or something. So how about this for a change: Rudy Rucker has an article on the portrayal of sex in science fiction which…
October 22, 2008
Well, this certainly sounds like a fun experiment.
n a bizarre experiment, academics at The Oxford Centre For Science Of The Mind 'tortured' 12 Roman Catholics and 12 atheists with electric shocks as they studied a painting of the Virgin Mary.
They found that the Catholics seemed to be able to…
October 22, 2008
We are so scary. Now the fact that godless Americans exist and that people actually talk to us is the subject of a political ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Watch this: it's got ominous music, it's got atheists saying there is no god, and Daylight Atheism gets another shout out……
October 22, 2008
Great. It just gets more and more insane. It seems that while McCain's side knows how to do 'spiritual warfare', Obama has all the witches on his side.
Minutes ago I spoke with friend Dr. Norman G. Marvin, M.D. and he is so concerned at what he has learned about Barack Obama's family in Kenya that…
October 21, 2008
You really don't want to read about another terrifying crazy Republican woman, do you? Too bad. Here it is: a good Christian homeschooling mom who doesn't like gay people. And by "doesn't like", I mean "wants them stoned to death and everything they touch blown up."
A friend recently sent me this…
October 21, 2008
The horrible Expelled is now available on DVD. I have no plans to view it. However, you can get it from a site called redbox, which has a bizarre synopsis.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Who better to interview fanatics than the hilariously deadpan Ben Stein? Here, the former host of "Win Ben…
October 21, 2008
The kind of smug, self-righteous ignorance and bigotry this woman displays is frighteningly common, I'm afraid. It's the one thing that makes me worry about the outcome of the election.
October 21, 2008
Surely there can't be anything objectionable to the Religious Right in a documentary called Animals in the Womb, can there? It sounds like it could be fun, with videos shot using tiny little cameras (and some simulations) of developing embryos in vivo. The only thing I object to is the silly title…
October 21, 2008
John Wilkins just had to ruin my morning.
The bad news is that those of us who teach at small liberal arts institutions have significantly smaller bars than the averages there. The good news is that our football coaches also get nowhere near that amount of money.
October 21, 2008
Londoners might soon notice the slogan above on local buses: the Atheist Bus campaign starts today, with the purpose of raising money to promote atheism as a positive force in the culture and to encourage people to stop wasting time and effort in silly superstitions. Urban England seems like a…
October 21, 2008
Keith Olbermann rips into a certain "unstable congresswoman from Minnesota," Rush Limbaugh, the politics of divisiveness, the McCain campaign, and places the ultimate responsibility on John McCain himself, and demands that he address the smears and bigotry of his supporters. It is great stuff.
I…
October 20, 2008
I have to confess that the title of this paper, The remarkable influence of M2δ to thienyl π conjugation in oligothiophenes incorporating MM quadruple bonds, is Greek to me, that the abstract was impenetrable, and the paper itself was thoroughly incomprehensible. I'm a biologist, not a chemist or…
October 20, 2008
There is currently a proposal before Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to rip through desert wilderness in your state to put powerlines. Chris Clarke makes the case against it; you don't have much time to respond, so phone or email your protests IMMEDIATELY. Let the state government know that there is…
October 20, 2008
Those are two good words to describe McCain/Palin supporters…and I don't know which one is scarier.
October 20, 2008
This video contains a nice breakdown of exactly who the wackaloons on the Texas Board of Education are, and will help you figure out who to vote for in the upcoming elections.
I always find it astonishing that Don McLeroy and Terri Leo actually have positions of responsibility in the Texas…
October 20, 2008
Reader wombat found a fascinating site in response to the creationist debate in Kentucky, led by Dr. Ben Scripture. It's an utterly bizarre page about a petrified human brain, and it is typical creationist tripe. They have gathered a collection of "authorities", where they make much of their…
October 20, 2008
Northern Kentucky University is going to have a mock trial on teh creation/evolution debate. They say the intent is to legitimately explore the issue.
"It is part of the mission of the Scripps Howard Center to conduct public forums," said Mark Neikirk, the Center's executive director. "I've heard…
October 20, 2008
At first, I was a bit disappointed in this result, but then I realized it's actually rather interesting in a negative sense. Investigators tested the effects of squid ink on other squid; the entirely reasonable idea being that it could contain an alarm pheromone that would have the function of…
October 19, 2008
Do you remember the 80s, when MTV actually played music videos, and pop bands all had weird concept videos that didn't seem to have much to do with the song, but were just productions to make you look at them? How about this: imagine if the lyrics of the song actually told the story portrayed in…
October 19, 2008
Jesse Bering has an interesting article on why many people have so much difficulty holding a realistic view of death — why they imagine immortal souls wafting off to heaven, and why they can't imagine their consciousness ceasing to exist. He's trying to argue that these kinds of beliefs are more…
October 19, 2008
Tina Fey opened Saturday Night Live last night. It would have been much funnier if they'd left that awful vice presidential candidate out of the sketch altogether.
October 19, 2008
Don't miss this one! Today, Atheists Talk radiowill feature the physicist Lawrence Krauss for the whole hour, talking about the Origins initiative.
Follow the link to get streaming audio from Air America, as long as you know a Minnesota zip code (like, say, 56267) and catch it in time — 9am Central…
October 18, 2008
That's the only possible explanation for their curious anachronisms. The Institute for Creation Research has just claimed that Mendel published his paper on genetics in 1866 to refute Darwin's theory of pangenesis (which, by the way, was published in 1868). Furthermore, Mendel's paper was initially…
October 18, 2008
Michele Bachmann is a great fundraiser…for Democrats. Since that creepy video of her calling everyone who isn't a rightwingnut "anti-American" has spread all over, money has been pouring into the Elwyn Tinklenberg campaign. Check out Tinklenberg's ActBlue page: he has received over $100,000 since…
October 18, 2008
This is really weird. Dr Imad Hassan claims to have proven Darwinian theory from the Qur'an and the Bible. Only…his version of Darwinian theory is a bit eccentric.
Then we disclosed that the word 'Adam' is a simple Arabic term for 'convertible' or 'adaptable'. It is a collective description by God…
October 17, 2008
Suddenly, the chorus of the Michelle Featherstone song acquires new depth and meaning.
But it's true
I'm still blue
But I finally know what to do
I must quit, I must quit, you
She must be from Innsmouth, and the song actually expresses a secret yearning. Although, really, I would expect more moist…
October 17, 2008
If you think Sarah Palin is bad, try listening to
Michele Bachmann for seven minutes. This is her interview with Chris Matthews, in which she accuses swarms of people of being "Anti-American".
One thing is amusing. Intermittently, Matthews tries to pin her down in her blanket screeds against…