Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
August 22, 2008
The Center for Inquiry has sponsored a new student-run initiative, Edger, a kind of group blog for young secularists.
Edger presents hard-hitting and reasoned news, views, and event promotion on issues pertaining to secularism, atheism, science, humanism, and the cosmos, and actively promotes and…
August 22, 2008
This clip is of a caller to the Atheist Experience who makes a series of assertions common among creationists.
Matt Dillahunty answers her well, but at the end he doubts that the caller was for real. Sorry, guy, I've heard those arguments a thousand times — they represent a kind of universal…
August 22, 2008
I just received this email from some communications group trying to publicize the virtues of the Democratic Party. It had the opposite effect on me — I am appalled. It's the usual Democratic strategic inanity of pushing to ape the Republicans instead of even trying to be a party of progressive…
August 22, 2008
So…Do you believe God has intervened to revive patients that doctors ruled were hopeless cases? 63% of the respondents in Eastern Iowa say "yes". Maybe we can disillusion them.
August 22, 2008
There was something familiar about this article on the colossal squid. It seems that when they're young and small, they're long, lean, and equipped with vicious hooks on their arms, but as they get older and larger, they get shorter, wider, and become slow-moving "giant gelatinous blobs".
So…squid…
August 22, 2008
Even the lovely island of Malta is infested with creationists…who have somehow acquired positions of authority in private schools.
Far from becoming extinct 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids.
This is the…
August 22, 2008
Claire O'Quin sent me this photo with a little story.
While taking a fish ecology and morphology class out at University of Washington's Friday Harbor Labs, we came across this little Stubby squid, Rossia pacifica, while collecting one day. He soon became our mascot during the 5 week class. I know…
August 21, 2008
This is another wonderful example of the sloppy scholarship of the creationists. The always pretentious Berlinski made the interesting claim that John Von Neumann, the deservedly famous mathematician, thought that Darwinian theory was ridiculous. Douglas Theobald crushes that claim. Von Neumann was…
August 21, 2008
I'm still yucky icky sick and oozing slime and fluids like a mollusc, but I did go see the doctor, and she assured me that my death was not imminent but probably at some distant time years hence. I interpret that to mean that my agony will be long and interminably enduring.
We also scheduled a…
August 21, 2008
Here follows a brief account of my sojourn in the Galápagos Islands, just to give you all a rough idea of what I was up to all this time. I've tossed in just a few pictures to illustrate what we experienced; I'm planning to dole out the rest a little bit at a time, each week. I took a lot of…
August 21, 2008
I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish
Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of the text seems to
show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father,
Brother, and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.…
August 20, 2008
In the reality based community, when you've got a problem, you call an expert with some skills and training to deal with it. In the rest of the world, you call a priest to blame evil spirits and do nothing for a small pile of money. How else to explain asking a wizened old Catholic priest to…
August 19, 2008
Hey, the next episode of the History Channel's series on evolution is coming up soon: Evolve: Sex. I don't quite have the stamina to liveblog it tonight — I'm ready to fall asleep sitting down — but I'll be tuned in and trying to watch it.
August 19, 2008
One of the chores I got done this afternoon, after a much needed nap, was to go through the mail that accumulated during our long absence. Part of that job is sorting out the pile of magazines that I did not subscribe to, but that some people out there think they can sign me up for and annoy me —…
August 19, 2008
Right now, this one's a tough choice: Who would win in a free-for-all, anything-goes cage match?. The top two contenders are PZ "The Violator" Myers and Christopher "Drunken Monkey" Hitchens, with me in the lead…probably because the thought of a man nicknamed "The Violator" and a reputation for…
August 19, 2008
What do you think? Would the world be better off without religion?
Of course, religion is only a symptom: what would really make the world better off would be if people were smarter and made important decisions rationally. That's even less like than growing out of religion, unfortunately.
August 19, 2008
Somebody shoot me. Yesterday was a full 24 hours of travel with nothing but intermittent naps, and of course I wake up this morning at my usual time of 6am after only 3 hours of sleep. And I seem to have acquired a chest cold. Or pneumonia. Or Ecuadorian Lung Rot, or something. I'm hoping that at…
August 18, 2008
We must all welcome Bitch Ph.D. to the ranks of bloggers who have twisted Bill Donohue's panties. Congratulations!
August 18, 2008
I got a request from a reader that I'll just pass on directly to any musically-inclined readers here…
Any chance Pharyngula readers can help? I have been writing and posting songs under the band name Natural Wastage on Soundclick.com (a sort of music version of myspace/facebook, I guess) for a…
August 18, 2008
Although I was actually in Guayaquil the day before brave heroes despoiled another cracker&hellip:
In response to criticisms by the nation's Catholic bishops regarding pro-abortion and anti-family language in Ecuador's new proposed Constitution, a group of people entered a chapel in Guayaquil,…
August 18, 2008
All sensible people want to get rid of the shrill kook and raging homophobe Sally Kern from the Oklahoma government — and she has some competition in the coming election. Get out there and party with Ron Marlett at the end of this month, and raise a little money for his campaign!
From Ron Marlett,…
August 18, 2008
We all regret the loss of Blue Collar Scientist to cancer a short while ago. Now we have an account of his last few days — he died dignified and living well to the last moment, on a visit to Down and Westminster Abbey.
August 18, 2008
I've been gone for 11 days now, and I'm not having a happy re-entry. Trying to get out of Quito this morning was a nightmare — we were up at 3:30am to catch a 4:00am shuttle to the airport for a 6:30am flight, and in order to leave Ecuador they make you stand in line for over 2 hours. Do the math,…
August 17, 2008
Since it has been a long time since I contributed any content to Pharyngula…here's something. I was asked to give a brief talk on the ship, so I've tossed my written draft below the fold. With these short talks I like to write the story first, but when I get up on the stage and actually perform it…
August 17, 2008
We have had a fabulous week in the Galápagos, and are slowly working our way back — we're in Quito tonight, getting up for a 4am shuttle to the airport tomorrow morning, with an 8 hour layover in Miami which means we won't get home to Morris until after midnight. We're ready to fall over, but look…
August 15, 2008
Loliolus japonica
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
August 14, 2008
Hiya gang, have you missed me? I've only got a moment before I have to go chase down flightless cormorants, so I thought I'd just pop in and tell you all I wish you were here, it's a fabulous place, and I'll have more to say when I get back after this weekend.
Until then, the guest bloggers are…
August 10, 2008
Someone asked if I went to church yesterday. Yes. This one:
I was only there for the gargoyles, which are all of Ecuadorian wildlife.
(Now I have to go catch a plane to the islands…)