Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
August 4, 2008
When animal rights activists petition and complain and wave signs around, that's fine, they are within their rights. When they start firebombing researchers cars and homes, putting children at risk and damaging property, they have become nothing but terrorists and criminals.
August 4, 2008
Tony Sidaway informs me that a lot of people have been clicking for Jesus — this new documentary that is being aired in England very shortly has roused the creationist hordes (OK, creationist dozens) to click furiously on its TV Guide entry to downrate it. It's pointless and trivial — they haven't…
August 4, 2008
I regret to report that Blue Collar Scientist has lost his struggle with cancer and that he died last night.
August 4, 2008
It has been announced that Phil Plait is to be the new president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. This can't be. I've never been entertained by Phil doing a card trick. Besides, James Randi is supposed to go on forever.
One consolation is that everyone is going to have to escalate the…
August 4, 2008
It actually feels kind of good, considering that my job is secure, and that these critics are looking increasingly rabidly insane. I just sit back and watch their hysteria grow. Case in point: Rod Dreher, who seems to be crawling the walls and screaming right now. In his 'review' of the desecration…
August 4, 2008
It's a small thing, only doing $10,000 worth of damage, but the location is newsworthy.
A fence and garage at Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church became engulfed in flames early Saturday, according to the Topeka Capitol-Journal Web site. The fire did not spread to the church building.
The cause…
August 3, 2008
I know. It's WorldNutDaily, so it's guaranteed to be abysmally ignorant, but I had to comment on the opening bits of this dreadfully bad review of Wiker's book that blames Darwin for the Nazis.
As a prologue to this book review, I propose the question: Can an idea, a theory, even a delusion kill? A…
August 3, 2008
You can now listen to today's Atheists Talk, or you can download the mp3. This was the session with Jeff and Lee of KKMS Christian talk radio, and I found it infuriating — they never answered any questions with a straight answer. Out of exasperation, I sent in this question, which was read on the…
August 3, 2008
Whoa, Charlie Booker's review of a new documentary on Darwin really makes me want to see it.
Darwin's theory of evolution was simple, beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring. But because it contradicts the allegorical babblings of a bunch of made-up old books, it's been under attack since day one.…
August 3, 2008
I'm wondering how this works. VADLO is a web search engine for biologists, and my first attempts at using it...it worked surprisingly well. I looked up a few techniques I've been using, and actually turned up some useful articles.
August 3, 2008
If you've ever wondered what a couple of Molly winners, Sastra and Blake Stacey, look like…
It's true. Blake is a creature of Kong-like immensity, beware!
August 2, 2008
Remember—Sunday morning at 9 Central tune in to Atheist Talk radio. This week, August Berkshire has two fundamentalist evangelical Christians on the show, Jeff and Lee from the Twin Cities Christian talk radio station, KKMS. I've dealt with these guys before, so my lip will be curled the entire…
August 2, 2008
The Center for Inquiry has put together two letters on the Webster Cook affair, one to be sent to UCF president John Hitt, and the other to the Catholic League. I've put both below the fold.
Dear John C. Hitt:
We are writing in response to the recent controversy surrounding University of Central…
August 2, 2008
As someone who takes his laptop everywhere, this is chilling news about the ongoing erosion of our rights:
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border…
August 2, 2008
I've been getting a volley of complaints that Pharyngula is crashing Internet Explorer. It turns out that this is a problem all over the web, and is Sitemeter's fault. I've changed the code in a way that I hope will fix it — let me know if it doesn't. (←cunning ploy there…if you're still crashing,…
August 2, 2008
I've always wondered why Natalie Portman was such a geek icon, but the final transformation in this video clarifies all.
(via BoingBoing)
August 2, 2008
Approximately 563 minutes ago, I noticed this peculiar analysis of language use on Pharyngula that suggested that we use the phrase "N minutes", where N is 5 or 10, with a slightly greater frequency than the web population as a whole. This made me self-conscious for a whole 18 minutes, so I thought…
August 1, 2008
Watch and find out next week, as the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa prepares to move the Colossal Squid live, on webcam. It's going from its formalin soak to a new display tank. Along the way they'll sew up a rip in the mantle, remove some eggs and check how it has preserved.
The live…
August 1, 2008
I've agreed to another talk radio debate — this time it's not a Christian radio station, so there's hope of some ethical behavior on their part — on WDAY, AM 970 next Tuesday, 5 August, at 10am. We're supposed to debate intelligent design, and my opponent is…
My opponent is…
Really, I'm embarrassed…
August 1, 2008
Every time I mention this developmentally significant molecule, Sonic hedgehog, I get a volley of questions about whether it is really called that, what it does, and why it keeps cropping up in articles about everything from snake fangs to mouse penises to whale fins to worm brains. The time seems…
August 1, 2008
Say hello to the newest member of Scienceblogs, Built on Facts. It's about physics! I guess that's OK, even if it isn't biology.
August 1, 2008
You've probably already heard this one, since it is all over the news: a preacher, Anthony Hopkins, murdered his wife after she caught him sexually abusing their children and stuffed her in a freezer — with the daughter's assistance. This happened four years ago and the children's mother has been…
August 1, 2008
Hey, isn't this the time of year you should be traveling to exotic places, diving and snorkeling in tropical oceans, and of course, sending your underwater photos to me to inspire acute envy? That's what Philip Qua did, and here are some cephalopods spotted in the Caribbean reefs off Cozumel.
July 31, 2008
I must confess to a cruel game with this post. I saw this poster and thought, "What? But most of these people weren't atheists!" Surely someone could do a far better job with this idea than that, and everyone would see the problem here (at least John Wilkins did, as did many of the commenters).…
July 31, 2008
The gang at Bakersfield that ran one of the polls we contributed to has noticed, and they feel violated. Mildly. And with a little good humor. I guess we'll have to do it again sometime!
July 31, 2008
I published a review in Nature this week, of Ken Miller's Only a Theory(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and boy, was that a tough one. The catch was that I want the book to do well, and I definitely think it has a place as an appeal to the religious majority to support good science (you know, all those…
July 31, 2008
Ontogenetic allometry in the fang in the front-fanged Causus rhombeatus (Viperidae) displaces the fang along the upper jaw. Scale bars, 1 mm. We note the change in relative size of the upper jaw subregions: i, anterior; ii, fang; iii, posterior. d.a.o., days after oviposition.
I keep saying this…
July 30, 2008
Here's one way to foil a pharynguloid poll invasion: limit your poll answers to those that aren't even wrong. Try to answer the question of"When does life begin?" — your only choices are at birth, at conception, at some stage, with a god (?), and the ever-useful "I don't know". Conception is…