Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
August 31, 2008
OK, gang, I know we're on a shorter than normal interval here, but still — you haven't been submitting enough stuff for the Tangled Bank. Write a science post right now and send a link to me. You can do it.
August 31, 2008
Shortly, I'll be heading north to the lovely town of Fargo for an evening of fine entertainment. Roy Zimmerman will be playing at the Red Raven Espresso Parlor at 8pm! Come on down!
If there any other Pharynguloids in the eastern North Dakota area, let's try and pack the house!
August 31, 2008
As Orac says, the latest Jack Chick tract is pretty loony. Did you know that if you're a good Christian you can fend off vampires easily?
August 31, 2008
Whenever you hear someone defend an action with the excuse that “it is our custom,” “it is traditional,” “we've always done it that way,” “it is written so in our sacred texts,” or variants thereof, slap ’em down and spit in their eye. Those are not excuses for anything but the perpetuation of bad…
August 31, 2008
Some Christian schnook visited a museum, read a sign, and complained to the museum. So what did the museum do?
An information sign, which is part of Abington Park Museum's display about Charles Darwin and fossils, was covered up after a visitor's complaint.
Two parts of the sign, concerning '…
August 30, 2008
Once again, Atheists Talk radio will be broadcast from the Minnesota State Fair at 9am Sunday. This week, they're going to explain what humanism is.
August 30, 2008
My state is practicing anti-democratic, anti-liberty tyranny right now.
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of…
August 30, 2008
Everyone must read this article about ‘Joel's Army’ and be afraid. It's a movement by radical Dominionists to build an informal paramilitary organization (at this time, it seems to be more attitude than organization) to prepare to fight to impose a kind of Christian fascism on the world. It may be…
August 30, 2008
But egads, it's hard work keeping up with the Elizabethan chatter required of the job, all in a day's work putting down yet another pretentious eruption of elitist bastards.
Most cruelly mock and rip and shred
August 30, 2008
You can watch it here. She did as well as she could, but whoa…this is a perfect example of how Stephen Colbert will tromp all over an interview for comic effect.
August 30, 2008
Wow…so have you heard about this result?
One goal of regenerative medicine is to instructively convert adult cells into other cell types for tissue repair and regeneration. Although isolated examples of adult cell reprogramming are known, there is no general understanding of how to turn one cell…
August 30, 2008
Integrity Bank in Georgia decided to build their business model on Christian principles.
Integrity's employees regularly prayed before meetings or in branch lobbies with customers, while the bank gave 10 percent of its net income to charities.
"We felt if we prayed and obeyed God's word and did…
August 30, 2008
Hey, there's some cool stuff out there:
A new one! Carnival of Evolution #1
I and the Bird #82
Humanist Symposium #24
Carnival of the Liberals #72
The Skeptics' Circle
And of course, if there's anything else you want to talk about, this is the thread to do it in.
August 29, 2008
I mentioned this before, but time is running out and the full allotment of money hasn't been used up yet. If you go to the Big Think site and watch a video about inspiring scientists, Pfizer will spend a dollar on DonorsChoose. The videos are actually pretty good, they aren't just commercials, and…
August 29, 2008
Sepioteuthis lessoniana
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
August 29, 2008
So McCain has picked Sarah Palin as VP. Supposedly she has some credibility as a good choice for dealing with energy issues, but near as I can tell she's of the drill-in-marginal-areas school, not someone who's going to pursue alternative energy sources, and is going to be a favorite of the oil…
August 29, 2008
Scienceblogs.com is about to hit one of those arbitrary round-number milestones: sometime soon, someone will make the one millionth comment. Our generous Seed overlords wish to mark this event with celebrations all over the world, and are planning to bestow upon us small sums of money for the…
August 28, 2008
I've spent my evening curled up with a wracking cough and nasty pains in places I didn't know I could hurt — I think I sprained my diaphragm — and while stumbling dumbly through the web, I belatedly found the story of the recent Georgia bigfoot. I know, it's last week's news, but I'm feeling a…
August 28, 2008
His blog is three years old, which as we all know means he has at last emerged from the terrible twos and has reached that period of maximal cuteness. He's a bit disappointed that the California legislature didn't issue an official proclamation, so he'll have to settle for a mere pharyngulation.
August 28, 2008
Once upon a time, I made some unfortunate remarks about knitting, and I felt like I'd prodded Madame Defarge, which is never a good idea.
But really, I love you guys, and here's a whole page of cephalopod craft patterns to show it.
August 28, 2008
The pope has condemned this silly sculpture as blasphemous, and German Catholics are trying to get it removed from display.
They can't be serious, can they? It's kitschy and funny. But really, they're unhappy about this.
The Vatican wrote a letter of support in the pope's name to Franz Pahl,…
August 28, 2008
Jennifer Oullette has put together a pop-sci book meme (and John Lynch has joined in). It's the usual thing, a long list of books and you're supposed to highlight the ones you've read, this time with the theme being that they're all about science somehow. I detect a physics bias in Ms. Oullette's…
August 28, 2008
Every time I see the disregard the Democratic party shows for secular values — which is painfully frequent — I wonder why the heck I'm even voting for these addled con artists. But then the Republicans remind me by showing up and being even worse. The latest is from the Elizabeth Dole campaign in…
August 28, 2008
Two things I find absurd are people who see Jesus in random patterns, and internet polls that try to impose patterns in noise. Here's something that does both: a moth was found with speckles that are supposed to look like Jesus.
"His hair right here and you can see the mustache and the beard and…
August 28, 2008
I was interviewed by a rather baffled radio announcer about the destruction of crackers (I know! Who would have thought such a silly event would be the focus of so much attention?) on BBC Radio Ulster. Reader DaleP tells me that it will be available online only until Saturday, so if you want to…
August 28, 2008
The latest edition, Tangled Bank #112, is now available at Science Notes.
This issue was delayed because I neglected to ride herd on it while I was off in the Galápagos, but the next edition, at En Tequila Es Verdad, will be on schedule next week, on 3 September. So get inspired by the latest and…
August 27, 2008
It's a very nice letter to Nature. I especially like the last line.
We were perplexed by your Editorial on the work of the Templeton Foundation ('Templeton's legacy' Nature 454, 253-254; 2008). Surely science is about finding material explanations of the world -- explanations that can inspire those…