Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
October 17, 2008
And your fault, too. The conservative columnist Melanie Phillips has an explanation for our current economic problems, for drunkenness and drug abuse, for rudeness, for psychopathic killers, and for the wholesale collapse of Western culture. What could possibly be the single root cause of so many…
October 17, 2008
It's called Stop Jenny McCarthy. Yes. Please do.
October 17, 2008
While Steve Jones might think human evolution has stopped, I have to say that that is impossible. If human technology removes a selective constraint, that doesn't stop evolution — it just opens up a new degree of freedom and allows change to carry us in a novel direction.
One interesting potential…
October 17, 2008
Bill Donohue is at it again. He has pestered YouTube into putting age requirements on viewing videos of host desecration, and now he's claiming that "we do not object to making fun of Catholics, or for that matter Catholic beliefs and practices, just so long as they are made in good taste". ORLY?…
October 16, 2008
Sepia apama
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
October 16, 2008
Decisions, decisions.
(via Chris's Invincible Super Blog)
October 16, 2008
We all know the story of the Miller-Urey experiment. In 1953, a young graduate student named Stanley Miller ran an off-the-wall experiment: he ran water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen in a sealed flask with a pair of electrodes to produce a spark, and from those simple building blocks discovered…
October 16, 2008
After a long hiatus, we're having a Drinking Liberally event at 7 tonight, at Old #1. I guess we're optimistically revitalized by the Democratic prospects for November.
Actually, it's also because Robin, of WOMB blog, Power Liberal, and the Minnesota Independent is passing through, so we have to…
October 16, 2008
An interesting reaction shot from last night's debate:
(via Kobra)
What do you think? Is this what McCain will be remembered for?
(via the Minnesota Independent)
October 16, 2008
I reported before that Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers was suing god for committing evil and making terroristic threats. I'm sorry to say now that God beat the rap, and now has something in common with O.J. Simpson. Of course, he got off on a technicality.
"Given that this court finds that…
October 16, 2008
Here's an interesting idea: since some countries have restrictive laws on abortion (rather like the ones McCain apparently would like to institute, where even the health of the mother becomes a non-excuse), a Dutch non-profit is sending a ship to provide reproductive health services to such…
October 16, 2008
That guy Phil is complaining that none of the big sites like Daily Kos or Crooks & Liars are covering the political campaign of Hal Bidlack for the 5th Congressional District of Colorado. Hey, Phil! Is that an admission that your site is tiny and insignificant? Cover it yourself!
At least I'll…
October 16, 2008
An artist, William Hessian, has hidden 35 miniature artworks portraying the octopus in public parks around Minneapolis. Your job: find them! It's getting cold, too, so you might want to do it before the first snowfall.
October 16, 2008
McCain really annoyed me last night, and there are a few things I have to mention now.
First of all, his gripe about the $3 million "overhead projector" simply marks him as an idiot — and not just an ignorant idiot, but the kind of idiot who ignores readily available evidence. What he is dismissing…
October 15, 2008
It's been a long day for me, and now I get to cap it off with another presidential debate. This could be awful. I'm just hoping that McCain is feeling desperate and will do something that's bug-eyed crazy to change the status of the election. Go ahead, say what you think in the comments.
McCain…
October 15, 2008
The latest edition is at Pro-Science. Toddle on over and see what's new in science blogging!
October 15, 2008
If you're concerned about the escalating creationist activity in the Texas Board of Education, then SIGN THIS PETITION. Now. Let's send a message.
October 15, 2008
The Texas Board of Education has named the six people who will be on a committee to review science curriculum standards. Texas, you've got trouble. The people are:
David Hillis, professor of integrative biology and director of the Center of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the…
October 15, 2008
My colleague at the Twin Cities branch campus of the University of Minnesota, Randy Moore, has won an award from the Discovery Institute: The Award for Most Dogmatic Indoctrinator in an Evolutionary Biology Course. Congratulations to Randy! He won it for this paragraph:
The evidence supporting…
October 14, 2008
OK, this is the kind of thing that just pisses me off: the tendency for some liberals to go off all loopy and credulous. The perfect example is on Salon right now—an article that goes on at ridiculous length about the judgments of a physiognomist, a ditz who derives McCain's economic policy from…
October 14, 2008
I have to give gogreen18 a godless clenched fist salute for this passionate explanation for why atheists need to speak out.
(via Ovablastic)
October 14, 2008
How can I respond to a story about zebrafish, development, and new imaging and visualization techniques? Total incoherent nerdgasm is how.
Keller et al. are using a technique called digital scanned laser light sheet fluorescence microscopy (DSLM) to do fast, high-resolution, 3-D scans through…
October 14, 2008
Ignorance leads to evil: albinos are being butchered for their body parts in Burundi. Witch doctors are spreading the claim that their body parts are valuable in attracting gold, so stupid and greedy people are killing them and selling off bits and pieces.
Officials have gathered all the albinos…
October 14, 2008
Seed and Scientists and Engineers for America are teaming up to promote a youtube challenge — they are collecting videos of scientists stating who they are voting for in the coming election. The first one up is Marty Chalfie, winner of the Nobel in Chemistry this year. Guess who he thinks should be…
October 14, 2008
Wait until the wingnuts get this: Hindus are presenting Obama with a monkey-god idol.
The idol is being presented to Obama as he is reported to be a Lord Hanuman devotee and carries with him a locket of the monkey god along with other good luck charms. An hour-long prayer meeting to sanctify the…
October 14, 2008
The latest issue of Science has a deservedly cruel review of Steve Fuller's dreary philosophical assault on evolution, Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism. I could tell from the title alone that the book was going to be worthless—Intelligent Design creationism provides…
October 14, 2008
How can I resist this poll? It's on a site called Pray for McCain-Palin, which is hilarious in itself, and here's the poll on that page:
Senator McCain's Pick of Sarah Palin as Vice Presidential Running Mate
Solidified my vote for him: 66%
Didn't change my vote for him: 5%
Made me less likely to…
October 14, 2008
The Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference is in trouble — government support has been flat, and corporate support has been declining. They are really in trouble: here's what I got from one of the people working on it:
The CUPC is the largest conference in North America organized entirely by…
October 13, 2008
Congratulations to surviving for a whole 21 years. Now go say thank you to your sweetie, Avy.
It's very short notice and I didn't know what to get you anyway, so you'll have to settle for a picture of an affectionate pair of land iguanas.
(Click for larger image)
Party on, dudes, and be excellent…