Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
February 7, 2006
Argento tackles the growing man-squirrel problem…and incidentally mentions me, the apologist for man-squirrel research.
February 7, 2006
I couldn't believe it myself when Gonzales said Washington and Lincoln had authorized electronic surveillance, but now we have a corroborative account that shows that Washington did authorize grand electrical schemes. Remember, he had the assistance of Franklin, so it isn't that implausible, is it…
February 7, 2006
I have been remiss in bringing these to your attention:
Carnival of the Godless
Skeptics' Circle
Grand Rounds
February 7, 2006
He's a miracle worker and a creative genius. How else can you explain his proposal to add or train 70,000 new math and science teachers while cutting the proposed education budget by 20%?
I'd like to be able to explain to my wife how we can buy a brand new MacBook Pro while saving money, but either…
February 6, 2006
The people dumber than Jonah Goldberg have to be the ones who thought he'd be worth inviting to speak.
(via Brad DeLong)
February 6, 2006
Where do you think this peculiar practice is going down?
OK, let me get this straight. A bunch of muttonheads are burying idols in their yards thinking it will magically get someone to buy their house, the Strib runs it as a straight story, yet the right wing somehow claims that the mainstream…
February 6, 2006
So scribblingwoman finally reads some recent China Miéville, long after Crooked Timber covered it (nothing wrong with that…if you saw my stack of books waiting for me to finish them…). She brings up a few interesting points, though, and one in particular poked me right in my reading biases. In…
February 6, 2006
I got a tip from a fellow working at the UBC Botanical Gardens. "Take a look at some of the descriptions the US National Park Service uses," says he, "and compare the more politicized parks to the others." Well, we know which park gets the most attention from the creationists—that would be the…
February 6, 2006
Bush/Gore, Bore/Gush, they were both the same, remember? It didn't matter whether you voted Democrat or Republican, you were just getting the same ol' thing.
Look how true that is: Bush sounds just like Al Gore. Of course, there were a few minor differences, like that Gore was 14 years ahead of…
February 6, 2006
Last week, the opening convocation for Black History Month was given by Tyrone Hayes of UC Berkeley. I was impressed: he's exceptionally personable, and despite the poor organization of his visit (UMM's fault, entirely) and having to drive for hours through a small blizzard to get here from the…
February 6, 2006
There are more stories out there about the corruption of science by Republicans. The National Park Service and Department of the Interior are messed up, with the Park Service rewriting documents to be "anti-environmental, pro-privatization and corporate use of the parks," and the Interior simply…
February 5, 2006
Ah, I remember those endlessly complicated maps of cellular metabolism I had to memorize for biochemistry. Now here's a clever idea: weblogs as enzymes in the metabolism of the blogosphere. I better not have to memorize the whole thing.
February 5, 2006
…but she wasn't. She was allowed to continue her educational malpractice until her contract expired, and then was not rehired—something that happens to adjunct and assistant professors all the time, with no necessary implication of poor work.
Caroline Crocker, if you've never heard of her, is the…
February 5, 2006
I've gotten a few links to interesting CafePress merchandise today. You can now get the Immortal Pinkoski's slogan, If you doubt this is possible, how is it there are PYGMIES + DWARFS?, on a t-shirt. Mona tells me that I can also get a fine selection of cephalopodous clothing, or samples of other…
February 5, 2006
As long as I'm making addenda to posts, let's hit up this one, too.
Some people have mentioned that they knew the creationists would come gunning for other domains of science sooner or later, and see George Deutsch's remarks as confirmation. There is absolutely no surprise to the criticism of…
February 5, 2006
Wow, but this post has inspired so many misconceptions.
I do not think Muslims should be insulated from satire. I do not think there is parity between a cartoonist drawing a picture someone doesn't like and a Muslim calling for the execution of the cartoonist. I am not on the Muslim's side here,…
February 4, 2006
&t
So, the Bush administration is going to try and be pro-science. Here we go.
In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild, a NASA contractor working on a set of Web presentations about Einstein for middle-school students. The message said the word "theory" needed to be…
February 4, 2006
I haven't commented on those Muslim cartoons so far. I'm conflicted.
Why, you might ask? It's a clear-cut case of religious insanity, exactly the sort of thing I ought to relish wagging an arrogantly atheistical finger at. And of course I will, in just a moment…but the difficult part is that there…
February 4, 2006
If these don't keep you entertained, feel free to talk about anything else.
If God is the designer, let's hope he has a backup career plan
A claymation granny explains photosynthesis
Squid-headed toys!
The FAQ the Discovery Institute ought to use
Unusual cards
The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog of…
February 4, 2006
If you haven't heard enough about human-animal hybrids, I'm interviewed in BellaOnline.
February 3, 2006
Although it is true that this fine group played the Edson auditorium tonight, and there was a rumor that they dragged the most uncoordinated old geezer in the house onto the stage, and there was a faint possibility that he made an embarrassing spectacle of himself with his wooden posturings and…
February 3, 2006
I simply do not understand some people's attitudes towards sex. I'm a fairly conservative guy in that department, I thought, happily involved in a long term and conventional relationship, but these stories I'm hearing about the new breed of American puritanism are simply incomprehensible to me.…
February 3, 2006
Kristine Harley attended James Curtsinger's lecture at UMTC last night, and passed along an abbreviated copy of her notes. I wish I could have gone—it sounds like it was an informative evening—but living out here in the wilderness, I have to plan those long drives into the Big City with some care.…
February 3, 2006
If you can only read one thing today, make it Skeptico's answers to Why did the chicken cross the road?
It's dead-on funny—read the hypothetical answers from all the skeptics and loons like John Edward and O'Reilly and Icke and many others, which are just perfect—I'm stealing Behe's answer!
A…
February 3, 2006
Here's a spiffy picture.
It's almost ruined for me by the artist's description, though.
Here, raw sexual aggression is symbolized by the sperm whale, while the squid acts as a thinly-disguised metaphor for the multi-armed oligarchies of Rockefeller, Hearst, and Morgan. Their battle plays against…
February 3, 2006
Tara Smith is interviewed by DarkSyde on Daily Kos. It's good stuff, but be warned: epidemiologists and microbiologists are among the scariest kinds of people to have a conversation with.
February 3, 2006
Iridoteuthis iris
This big-eyed Hawaiian squid is only 3cm long. It's a sepiolid, or one of the bobtail squids.
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
February 3, 2006
It's about 3°F outside right now, and it's supposed to get up into the 20s later—it's unseasonably warm out there. How much warmer? About 16°, on average, as you can see from the map.
Niches has the weather stats. I'm going to walk out into the sauna outside and go to class.
February 2, 2006
Hrm. Well. Tut-tut-tut. Now we can see Flying Spaghetti Monster erotica.
Not exactly work-safe, but noodly bits are artfully draped to make it all a little less explicit.
February 2, 2006
Bush didn't really mean we were going to try and reduce our dependency on Middle East oil.
Bush didn't really mean we were going to invest more in alternative energy research.
In this thread, I've got Bush apologists trying to tell me he didn't really mean that he was going to prohibit a wide range…