humor
pharyngula | October 5, 2010But we are amused, and the helpless fury of the believers only makes us laugh harder. Read this account of an angry pastor who fired off indignant emails to a humor site protesting this sacrilegious image:
The editors respond by letting him know that they've got more, and sending him links. Mr Pastor does not seem satisfied by this.
pharyngula | October 4, 2010Bravo! A blog about language gets, as you might expect, a few fairly repetitive responses to common issues, and Language Log gets lots of unimaginative comments about ending a sentence with a preposition…and they've reached the limits of their patience.
Unable to bear any longer the tedious work of seeking out all the instances of these two dopey comment types and deleting them, I have decided that from now on I will hunt down the relevant commenters and kill them.
I realize that it is unusual for a popular science blog to launch upon a policy of killing its own readers. That is why I…
sastyk | October 4, 2010The always-brilliant "Peak Oil Hausfrau" Christine Patton has a wonderful piece addressing the calm and reasoned Roman response to the recent "Foreign Barbarian Invasions: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management" report.
Proponents of the so-called "barbarian invasion" theory today warned of the "potentially disastrous" effects of hundreds of thousands of Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals plundering the imperial capital, including death, despoilment and dismemberment of the populace, and destruction of the city's ancient architecture and temples.
Senator Titus Claudius scoffed at the authors of…
pharyngula | September 29, 2010I initially thought this was a fine graph, charting the fields of research of mad scientists over time, since it did accurately conclude that biologists rocked that niche, but then I looked closer, and they shortchanged us. For some entirely arbitrary reason, they split mad biologists into "biology", "biotechnology", and "neuroscience"…but those are simply subdisciplines of biology! You don't see mad physicists split into "physics", "lasers", and "whatever else physicists do", now do you? I see what they were doing: they were trying to minimize the appearance of our overwhelming dominance!…
pharyngula | September 29, 2010He's done it again. It's another comic that mocks biologists. It's entirely true, but that's beside the point — he's exposing us! And yes, I know that he's married to a parasitologist, which just means he's been given direct insight into the mind of a biologist and will be using that information against us.
This could be trouble. Weiner shouldn't be surprised if he's walkin' down the street sometime and a gang in labcoats whispers up behind him in their Priuses and pelts him with viscera. We're a dangerous bunch, you know.
pharyngula | September 25, 2010Vile calumny! I am offended! That's also the worst caricature of Phil Plait ever!
I think I will have to defend my honor as a biologist in a duel at dawn or something.
Or something…I suppose I could teach him how much romance there is in a cup of semen, instead…
oracknows | September 22, 2010I've expounded on the principle of crank magnetism. Basically, crank magnetism is the tendency of cranks not to mind the crankery of other cranks, even if the two forms of crankery are mutually exclusive. But it's more than that. It's the tendency of a single crank to be attracted to several forms of crankery. We've seen it in creationists who are also attracted to "alternative medicine," in anti-vaccine loons who are also attracted to alternative medicine and various conspiracy theories, including "9/11 Truth." I've seen it in Holocaust deniers who are also attracted to both "alternative"…
oracknows | September 20, 2010This guy would appear to be screwed:
The rat running by the acupuncturist's door is a nice touch, too. And so appropriate.
pharyngula | September 20, 2010Since Rabbi Lapin has identified godless folk as "parasites", we need a field guide to atheist parasites, just so you can avoid them. They're horrible little creatures with filthy habits, like writing or teaching math.
oracknows | September 19, 2010A friend of mine at work sent this video to me in great amusement.
I just hope he wasn't making a comment on my behavior when it comes to dealing with our biostatisticians. I have, of course, seen investigators approach biostatistians this late in the game. Not that I've ever flirted with this sort of behavior, of course.
mikethemadbiologist | September 19, 2010Not to pick on anyone, but this is what I go through with far too many projects:
"My grant is due tomorrow. I just need to know...."
And: "I can put you on my grant for a 0.5% FTE..."
pharyngula | September 17, 2010I had dinner with Mr Deity tonight (he's here in Fargo), and he mentioned his new video. You may recall that in the last episode, he failed his psych exam, and now he's going to have to work some shady angles to get his creation.
oracknows | September 16, 2010It's no secret that I'm a bit of a connoisseur of pareidolia.
The various shapes and contortions the human mind can impose on clouds, stains, pancakes, trees, toast, Lava lamps, toilet seats, and even medical imaging tests never ceases to amaze me. We are pattern-seeking creatures, and our brains will go to great lengths to impose familiar patterns onto objects. Sometimes, however, I have to call 'em as I see 'em, and this bit of pareidolia is just lame: Satan on a bathroom tile:
A family abandoned their bathroom fearing it had been possessed by the devil after an image of Satan appeared…
pharyngula | September 13, 2010I will have you know that I never experienced the red pattern in the diagram.
It does remind me that I need to get a haircut this week, though.
pharyngula | September 10, 2010The LDS church has a weird habit of baptizing dead people into their faith — and now you can get even. Atheize anyone!
It works, too! I atheized Brigham Young, and next thing I knew, his ghost was hanging about whining about how I'd gotten him kicked out of Mormon heaven and how all his celestial wives had laughed as they tossed his newly godless patriarchal butt off out of their palace. That may sound like a bit of an annoyance, getting haunted out of the deal, but really, it's no problem — just remind them that they don't believe in the supernatural, and you might get a brief look of…