pharyngula

Georgia is fishing for a new license plate design, and of course the god-botherers want to proclaim their piety on their cars. Vote fast, it expires today, apparently. Should the words "In God We Trust" be included in the new Georgia license plate design? Yes 77% No 21% Undecided 2%

The Pew Foundation has surveyed evangelical Christians on a variety of topics, and here's an interesting result: only 3% accept evolution. And it's worse than that, since that 3% seems to be just in the bounds of noise and the frequency of individuals who essentially reject the basics of…

(via Science-Based Parenting)

It's so easy to join!

Should math be taught in the schools? (Obviously inspired by the Miss USA question.)

Bernie Sanders gave a wonderful speech to the senate. Here's the conclusion: So, today, I am asking the American people that, if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice; if you believe the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations should be asked to pay…

Kent Hovind has been transferred to a new prison, Florence Admax. The United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) is a supermax prison for men that is located in unincorporated Fremont County, Colorado, United States, south of Florence. It is unofficially known as ADX Florence…

That was quick. Here's the video of that ancient debate. It's in five parts because that was the way it was organized on the DVD.

Someone, not yet identified, paid $201,000 for that piece of crap. It wasn't the Talk Origins Archive Foundation, either; they had nowhere near that sum to spend, nor would it have been worthwhile to cough up that much cash. I'm hoping some creationist organization just got fleeced.

I've received a suggestion that one potential source of a lot of the recent nonsensical creationist literature-quoting has a plausible source: Jerry Bergman. That guy is completely nuts, as I learned in a debate a while back; he's also pretentious while not knowing much, and he's painfully prolific…

I know I usually post the crazy wacky stuff under this title, but to be honest, that's actually a minority of the stuff that finds its way to my inbox: most of it is neutral in tone, a lot of it is telling me I must write about subject X, but some of it is also complimentary — and the good stuff…

I tell other scientists all the time that their work is being appropriated by creationists who barely understand it, and that it is getting distorted to support bogus pseudoscience. Whenever you see a creationist quote a genuine science paper, you can pretty much trust that it is going to be…

The Atlantic published a rather contemptible apologetic for alternative quackery titled "The Triumph of New-Age Medicine, which basically declared victory for the altie wackaloons. The way it did this was devious, and reminded me so much of creationist tactics. First, it declares that "mainstream…

Nice song. (Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,639 entries with 1,415,586 comments.)

Pat Robertson is just losing it. His mind was always rather decrepit, but it looks like the rest of him is catching up now. He's also repeating his familiar claim that no society can 'embrace' homosexuality and survive, and now he's saying that god is going to destroy America for allowing gay…

Harry Lonsdale is a godless Oregonian who has just offered a $50,000 prize plus $2,000,000 in funding for research into the origins of life. A millionaire scientist who once ran as a Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate has just launched a $50,000 prize to promote research on the origin of life.…

Lord Monckton, the wacky climate skeptic, demonstrates another common feature of these crackpots: he doesn't just have one domain of supreme quackery, it extends everywhere…and he is now claiming to have a cure for HIV and the common cold. I haven't been able to track down what this panacea is,…

It's been a rough weekend. It was a rough night, with little sleep. This morning I had the double whammy of a doctor's appointment and a dentist's appointment. So I'm feeling a little cranky, and my teeth are all coated with this gummy gritty cherry-flavored fluoride goop. You don't want to cross…

This is moderately weird: it's a periodic table of atheists, and I've been assigned an atomic number of 4, which makes me a rare, brittle, and highly toxic metal with a high melting point. Does anyone else look at these charts and try to draw inferences from chemical properties to the individual?

It looks like I missed my chance — I think this place was only a few blocks from the hotel where I stayed in Brighton a few weeks ago. An artist has put together a montage of 400 casts of women's personal bits, called The Great Wall of Vagina. It's impressive and rather pretty. You know, I've…

I know, it's a sign of the coming apocalypse…but Bill Donohue of the Catholic League opposes faith-based federal programs, just like I do! Well, not quite like I do. It turns out he has a different reason than I do. When Sen. Obama was running for president three years ago, he pledged support for…

You know who is really unhappy about NY's gay marriage law? "Religious leaders", of course. Religious leaders slammed the state's new gay marriage law on Saturday, vowing to ban politicians who supported the measure from any Catholic church and parochial school events. The city's top Catholic…

Edinburgh will be hosting Skeptics on the Fringe in August — three solid weeks of skeptical events. Danger! All of your illusions will be scoured away, the flamethrower of reason will turn all your generous delusions to ash, the bones of reality will be unclothed and exposed…I expect people will…

Yeah, that's me. Ken Ham has noticed a certain article I wrote, and describes it for his blinkered followers. Apparently, in this instance with Emma, a well known atheist wrote (very typical for him) an anti-Christian blog attacking me/AiG. Apparently some of his followers decided to send this on…

As I've already mentioned, the makers of the Expelled movie have gone bankrupt, and the movie itself is on the auction block…and a few people on the side of goodness, light, and knowledge are making a bid to buy it. There's some reasonable interest there: the Expelled crew did a lot of interviews,…

He's written a wonderfully clear rejection of the Singularity nonsense. He's right on, 100%.

It's like talking to a brick wall: MacLatchie is appallingly obtuse. When last I argued with him, I pointed out that the major failing of his entire developmental argument against evolution was that it was built on a false premise. As I said then, I can summarize it with one standard template: "…

What is it with all the quacks on daytime TV?

Cats can't do this. Also, if cats could shed their skeletons, they wouldn't be considered a delicacy.