Paul Z. Meyers
pharyngula
Posts by this author
March 16, 2011
It's not such a drag to be the skeptic in the room when the room is full of skeptics. Keep on arguing.
(Current totals: 12,053 entries with 1,311,057 comments.)
March 16, 2011
I do get strange complaints sometimes.
Dear Mr Myers,
My fathers name was Helmut Max Karl Ritter.
However, in Australia, due to people's inability to pronounce his name correctly, he suggested that they call him Tom, Dick or Harry. Henceforth, they decided to call him 'Tom Ritter'.
I take…
March 16, 2011
Scarcely do I put up a post arguing with Jerry Coyne, when I notice he has put up another with an example of evidence for a god from John Farrell. And lo, I did look, and verily, I did become depressed at how stupid and pathetic it was.
An archeologist working in Israel, discovers an ossuary from…
March 16, 2011
Uh-oh. Jerry Coyne is calling me out and reopening our old argument about whether there could be evidence supporting a god. I said no, for a number of reasons, but I haven't convinced Coyne.
The statements by P.Z. and Zara seem to me more akin to prejudices than to fully reasoned positions. They…
March 15, 2011
But we do have a little more information from Seed management.
Let me apologize again for the problems that many of you and your readers are experiencing. The attack is ongoing, originating from Turkey and Qatar, and until it stops, Rackspace must block IP ranges in order for the site to be…
March 15, 2011
I've got banners out the wazoo now: 19 26 have been installed now, and I can always add more, so it's not too late to send one in.
As several people have noticed, I was wrong. The actual dimensions of the space allotted for banners is 760x126 pixels, but the bottom 24 pixels are obscured by a menu…
March 15, 2011
Science journalists, you really piss me off…at least some of you. Here are a couple of headlines about that recent paper I summarized that make me want to slap someone.
"Eye evolution questioned." No, it's not. That's just trying to stir up a non-existent controversy. The eye evolved. This was a…
March 15, 2011
About 600 million years ago, or a little more, there was a population of small wormlike creatures that were the forebears of all modern bilaterian animals. They were small, soft-bodied, and simple, not much more than a jellyfish in structure, and they lived by crawling sluglike over the soft muck…
March 14, 2011
The situation in Japan is looking dire. Workers have been evacuated for their safety from one of the failing nuclear plants, setting the stage for a possible meltdown. There have been more explosions, and more venting of radiation. Another unit, Unit 4, which was not one of the plants that was…
March 14, 2011
Holy crap, have you seen the line up for The Amaz!ng Meeting? Everyone is going to be there, except maybe the Chinese army and a forgotten marching band in Lithuania. How are they going to schedule this monster? How many people are they going to have attend…or are they all signed up to present…
March 14, 2011
I don't even know where to begin. The choices on this one make no sense.
Do you believe evolution should be taught as a theory instead of accepted fact?
Yes
44%
No
50%
I'm not sure
5%
But evolution is both a fact and a scientific theory! I guess I had to focus on the use of the word "instead" to…
March 14, 2011
You knew the religious folk were going to look at the disaster in Japan and start pointing fingers. This time, though, it wasn't the fault of gays and lesbians, nor was it the sight of jiggling breasts…no, this time, it was the atheists' fault.
Senior pastor Cho Yong-gi of Yoido Full Gospel Church…
March 14, 2011
Before you say it, I know I'm giving him attention, too. Cardinal George Pell, the old fool, got lots of press for being a climate denialist, again. After a talk, he denounced the climate scientists for not being scientific, while he, the guy who believes angels and saints and great magic boojums…
March 14, 2011
I've always wondered.
(via Boing Boing)
March 13, 2011
It's a pseudo-poll with 168,000 votes already, and I don't believe it. The Rethuglican Wisconsin governor who has been trying to silence the people is not going to be the recipient of such clear favor and such large numbers…but here, go play with it anyway.
POLL: Do you approve of the job Gov.…
March 13, 2011
I've munged up the last iteration of the endless thread! While I try to patch it up, it was time to update it anyway. So resume here, with this video of what Maori science classes are like.
(Current totals: 12,037 entries with 1,308,294 comments.)
March 13, 2011
Minnesota's own pious Republican idiot (uh-oh, I repeated myself three times) has chastised Obama for his wickedness in a recent letter. His crimes are many. In a recent speech in Indonesia, he 1) referred to our national motto as E pluribus unum, not "In god we trust", 2) quoted a small part of…
March 13, 2011
Let's compare teacher salaries in different countries and find out.
(Click for larger image)
You go, USA! Looks like we need to bust up some teachers' unions and get those pay scales down even lower.
(That's sarcasm, for any Republicans/Teabaggers/Libertarians who might show up and find that kind…
March 13, 2011
Many have noticed that the Pharyngula banner has been gone for a few weeks. This is a completely independent problem from our recent (and still ongoing) access bugginess. For some reason, our tech guy hosted all those images on the Amazon web server when setting up the pages, and Amazon has either…
March 13, 2011
I've been saying for a long time that that 'journal' that published the meteorite microbes story was a joke: now someone who has also published in the JoC gives us a look at the review process there. It's not very rigorous, as you might expect.
She also gives a good mineralogical explanation of the…
March 12, 2011
Tune in Sunday morning at 9am Central time to Atheist Talk radio, where Jen McCreight will be warming up the Minnesota crowd for her grand tour of the state the week after next.
March 12, 2011
Jane Cunningham, a Rethuglican (of course), has sponsored a bill in the Missouri congress that will disillusion you a little further today. Behold, SB 222!
This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number…
March 12, 2011
Japan has a tragic and devastating earthquake. American responses follow a range of attitudes. One that is normal and appropriate is sympathy and outreach by donations to organizations like the Red Cross; if you're in that group, good for you, congratulations on being a human being.
Another…
March 12, 2011
Lately, I've completely given up on giving any credit to the Rethuglican party at all — where once I could have grudgingly admitted that perhaps some conservative policies were sensible, the current party is no longer conservative, but simply insane. As an example, I give you The Energy Tax…
March 11, 2011
Are you going to the American Atheists National Convention in Des Moines, Iowa this April? Are you bringing the family? Are you concerned that the kids might get bored listening to Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Krauss, Matt Dillahunty, Elizabeth Cornwell, me, Greta Christina, and Hector Avalos?…
March 11, 2011
I'm stunned. People actually elected this lunatic, Rand Paul?
So, somehow, Rand Paul, who is 100% anti-abortion, deeply resents the fact that the government wants to enforce energy efficiency and insist that we should conserve resources, because it infringes on his right to buy old hot wasteful…
March 11, 2011
It's a giant amoeboid horror!
Suddenly, I appreciate one benefit of living in Minnesota.
March 11, 2011
The Oregon House has passed a bill removing the special protections for faith healers. Sorry, god-botherers in Oregon, you don't get to claim the approval of gods to justify torturing, maiming, and killing your children with neglect.
It passed unanimously, too, although of course a couple of…
March 11, 2011
Since I just received my very own copy of The Digital Cuttlefish Omnibus, I had to include a picture of a cuttlefish this week, even if this one doesn't have a book of poetry.
You can order your own copy, too. Keep it by the bedside for amorous readings, or something.