pharyngula

Not all my mail is from cranks and ravers; I actually get some nice and friendly and interesting mail, too. Like this one, from Hank Alme, who asks a good question: To what extent does intellectual honesty require me to also read guys like Behe and Dembski, and to understand their arguments? That'…

What a strange thing; it's the third of May, and I was thinking about one of my favorite paintings. Go ahead and take a moment and just look at it—you can click on it and see a larger version, if you want. Think about it. Goya's The Third of May The painting commemorates an event in history: almost…

Then don't read about hyena births. Puppies ripping their way through clitorises does not make a pretty picture.

The Drinking Liberally event was packed. I don't know how many people were there, but I think it was somewhere within a few orders of magnitude of a gazillion. Kos speechified briefly, exhorted us to buy his book because every copy sold makes a conservative cry, and then answered questions from the…

I'm going to have to get this book, Sex, Drugs, and DNA (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll) just on the basis of a few excerpts… Unfortunately, the US is a nation of very stupid people. So I have stripped out the jargon and tried to deal with science and health issues as though I was haranguing you at a party…

… and that one big stack of grades is done. I'm going to Drinking Liberally! I might be a little red-eyed and late, but I need this. I'm here…so is Kos. It's a mob scene, but there's still room for more, so come on down. We're still waiting on the good Dr B. She must be planning on making an…

I really want to go to Drinking Liberally tonight—I even said I would go. It is, however, the end of the term, and there is a horrific pile of grading sitting on my desk. It's the classic dilemma of having to choose between fun and beer and interesting people vs. obligations and responsibility and…

I get lots of hate mail, but it's actually not that often that I'm cc'ed complaints sent to my acting chancellor and the university PR person. Since he's willing to share, so am I…so here's Mr Daryl Schulz's defense of free speech: I have known a few people through the years that have gone to UM…

Man, the comments on my guest editorial at the Raw Story are nuts. I don't know if the word "secular" brought out a flock of trolls, or if that place is always infested with these uncomprehending goons. There are a couple of people who seem baffled by the fact that I wrote a positive piece on the…

Lisa Jardine is a historian who clearly understands how science works: The thought uppermost in my mind was how odd it is that non-scientists think of science as being about certainties and absolute truth. Whereas scientists are actually quite tentative—they simply try to arrive at the best fit…

OK, this Dean Dad fella substituting for Dr. B got me a little sniffy with his first post (telling little kids easy lies about heaven is a pet peeve. Dead is gone, sugarcoating it is the first step to a life of delusions), but his latest is much more interesting and sparked some cranky comments—is…

How else can you explain why those adorable screaming moonbats at the Daily Kos have come up with a science book? I'm kind of dismayed that good science has become a partisan issue, but don't blame us—our side puts out stuff like Kosmos: You Are Here, while the righties seem to have a surfeit of…

Hey, I'm back home again, and crawling through my mail. While I'm simultaneously trying to recover from a long, long drive, skim through a mountain of mail, and get caught up on essential grading (there are days I'm glad I have three brains), read Circus of the Spineless #8. I will be back in the…

I'm on the road again for a big chunk of today, so let's just contemplate this icon for a failed, dishonest presidency—not only was the Iraq War a failed endeavor, but we have here an administration that relied entirely on propaganda and illusion…and they were incompetent at even that. While you'…

In previous articles about fly development, I'd gone from the maternal gradient to genes that are expressed in alternating stripes (pair-rule genes), and mentioned some genes (the segment polarity genes) that are expressed in every segment. The end result is the development of a segmented animal:…

Remember Melinda Barton and that awful piece on the Raw Story? It was taken down, and now it's back up with a few changes, I think. The editors asked me to submit a rebuttal. It's online at the Raw Story now, along with that lovely icon to the right ("Secular Horror"?). You can read it there, or…

This is not funny. Five children between 9 and 16 years old died and several others suffered burns when lightning struck a white-painted metal cross set on a hill in the town of Santa Maria del Rio early on Sunday, according to two newspaper reports. If they'd paid as much attention to science as…

Hurtling1 down the road in my black Chevy2, I laugh maniacally3. "Time to kick creationist butt4," I say, "and test the mettle of the Cheeseheads.5" I'm heading off to the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point to minister to the heathen today, so my online presence may be limited. I've got a…

Grrlscientist is pushing another of those online quiz thingies—What's Your Theme Song?—and it was quick and easy, so I took it. Now I'm horribly scarred. Especially compared to my fellow science bloggers, I got a result that disturbs me deeply. I may end up getting kicked off scienceblogs over this…

After sitting through Hovind's talk, I have seen the light. I've always been awfully hard on Christianity and Christians here, despising their beliefs and making mock of their nonsensical ideas and backwards social agenda. But this evangelist really reached out and grabbed me. I now feel a great…

My schedule is knocked all to heck today—there was some mess of an accident on I94 that cost me an extra hour and a half coming into the cities, and the cops in the U district sent me wondering all over the place in order to maximize congestion and protect some sporting event—so I'm not sure what I…

Be amused. The malevolent clown at Billy Dembski's blog has joined the blithering clown at Telic Thoughts in calling for my head, because I've admitted that I will vote on matters of substance and scientific validity in tenure decisions. This will not do! Why, if college professors hinder the…

There's no doubt that Tony Snow is a creationist, especially not after Nick Matzke's interview.

This week's Friday Cephalopod is reader submitted. Sepioteuthis lessoniana And there's more at Andre Seale's gallery!

My life isn't easing up just yet as we wend our way to the imminent end of the term. I'm going to be flitting about over the next few days. I'm chauffeuring #1 son to a job interview in Minneapolis today, and then returning him home to St Cloud again sometime this evening. I'm planning to be in St…

The Squid blog links to a wonderful National Geographic video of the Humboldt squid. Watch them attack divers! I cheered! Alas, the squid's efforts to taste monkey meat were frustrated, and the noble beasts have not learned to love the taste of sweet manflesh…yet.

A reader brought Crap I Drew on My Lunch Break to my attention—I like it. The artist understands us godless people and our love of puppy dog dinners and satanic rituals, and she doesn't seem fond of Intelligent Design creationism. It's on my list of regular webcomics to read.

One of these people is a babbling butthead. Tony Snow: "Racism isn't that big a deal any more." Ampersand: "The effect of a crime like this—and the subsequent not guilty verdict—is to remind all blacks that a substantial number of whites consider blacks to be a good deal less than human." Guess…

One moment I'm posting about jawless fish, the next I'm sent a link to the bravest, craziest young people to infest a marine station. Yes, the two stories are connected.

Chemistry stinks. (via Uncertain Principles)