pharyngula

It's just one of those freakish religious practices I cannot comprehend, this strange "anointing" of heads and objects with oil. Why? Does their god just like his targets greased up? It's especially inappropriate when a teacher regularly rubs magic lubricants onto her students. A Norfolk teacher…

Now, at last, with this handy reference and a pair of binoculars, you too will be able to identify biologists. Notice the unusual markings. These varieties of biologists are clearly wearing no pants, one of the characteristics of the bench biologist, a delicate breed that favors air conditioned…

Remember that horrible, stupid, no-good article about chickens and eggs, the one that used the identification of a protein important in egg shell formation to claim chickens had to have come before eggs, with no comparative data, no appreciation of the logic of evolutionary theory, and absolutely…

Let's see more charts and graphs to suck the joy out of your life! Here are 15 Appalling Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America — the rich-poor divide is growing. One graph summarizes it all: If you aren't in the top 1% of America's earners, you're pretty much screwed. There's a lot of class…

There have been some recent surveys of attitudes towards evolution and the state of science education in the US, and I've mainly used tables in presentations — so it's nice to see some eye-catching graphical representations of the data. Use these! One thing surprised me — usually, this datum is…

I have reset the wildly mutating thread to leap upon the latest internet craze! I'm on a horse. (Current totals: 10,638 entries with 1,059,133 comments.)

Michael Zimmerman, the guy behind the Clergy Letter Project and Evolution Sunday, in which ministers are encouraged to endorse science and evolution, is unhappy with those danged New Atheists who refuse to support his efforts. Jerry Coyne excerpts Zimmerman's complaint. Oddly enough, although these…

Fresh from American Atheists: MAYBE TONIGHT (FRIDAY, JULY 16) OR MONDAY, JULY 19, 2010 KAGIN, ATHEISM, CAMP QUESTAND MORE SLATED FOR ABC NIGHTLINE The long awaited segment called "Faith Matters" of ABC's "Night Line" may air tonight (Friday, July 17, 2010) or on Monday, July 21. We apologize…

(via Yeeta.com)

Those slippery rascals at Answers in Genesis have been doing research, they say, and Jason Lisle claims to have discovered something radical. I have been working for some time on solving the "distant starlight problem." This is the issue of how starlight from the most distant galaxies is able to…

There are two very good reasons. Because rodents are pee-sniffing preverts. Eww. Because every post about Republicans or the Vatican is about rodents, so we've already got more than enough of that around here. Double eww. Or W. The Friday Cephalopod will magically appear at some point today.…

Larry Arnhart wrote a strange article in which he tried to claim Darwin and evolution for libertarianism, or as they prefer to call it nowadays, "Classical liberalism". I was invited to give a reply, along with a few other people, but I can give the gist of my reaction here: no one gets to claim a…

The Masala Skeptic reviews the latest Twilight movie. How dare they offend twee & morbid teenagers? This review will make them mope some more. This one is personal, too. Our local theater booked this movie a couple of weeks ago, and it is still playing. I doubt that it's because it's popular…

Feeling bored? Not enough creationists turning up on Pharyngula? Do you need some fresh meat? There's a whole field of sheep on the Natural Therapy Pages on Facebook who are unaccustomed to skeptical wolves! A few sample messages there: Tony Gyenis Susanne and I are bringing tuning forks and…

This is going to be hilarious: Comic-con is next week in San Diego, and the professional attention whores at Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church are going to picket it. The destruction of this nation is imminent — so start calling on Batman and Superman now, see if they can pull you from the mess…

They've done it again. They've declared that the ordination of women is as heinous a crime as raping children, simultaneously minimizing the trauma of child-rape and maximizing the insult to women. I don't know how they do it. The Catholic church is rich, they've got a lot of very smart people…

You may have been fooled by my youthful vigor and childlike exuberance, but I'm actually an old guy — I've got entirely grown up kids who have moved out and have nothing to do with me anymore. They're so old that they aren't even threatening to move back into my basement any more! I'm just going to…

I don't know if I can bear to watch this. Throughout the trailer, all I could think about was the creature's gastro-intestinal arrangement. It's got a mouth at both ends. All the heroes have to do is let it keep eating, and since it can't excrete, it'll eventually explode. (via Deep Sea News)

Sometimes, I really hate fossils. I hate them with the passion of a spurned lover, one who is consumed with desire but knows that he will never, ever be satisfied. They drive me mad. Right now we're at a point in our technology where we can take a small sample from a living organism and break it…

I wish Samuel Clemens were still alive, so I could piss him off and he'd write something like this back to me. It would be such an honor. Nov. 20. 1905 J. H. Todd 1212 Webster St. San Francisco, Cal. Dear Sir, Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits…

A lot of people have been writing to me about this free webgame, CellCraft. In it, you control a cell and build up all these complex organelles in order to gather resources and fight off viruses; it's cute, it does throw in a lot of useful jargon, but the few minutes I spent trying it were also a…

Rachel Roberts says, "I don't know how, but homeopathy really does work". Oh, I thought, let's give it a try and hear why. But then I was five paragraphs in and getting nothing but this inane anecdote about how when she was 21, and she was at this party, see, and this lady said she used to have…

Demonstrating once again that we northerners are dour old puritans, Argentina has legalized gay marriage. If this means Argentinians are damned, that's just more good news: there will be Carnival in hell.

Really, they are. A while back, the Institute for Creation Research moved to Texas, where they expected a friendly welcome, and instead they got spanked: their request to be allowed to hand out degrees was turned down by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. This made the ICR angry, and…

That's the latest news, anyway: radio masts operated by the Vatican have been implicated in an increased incidence of cancers nearby. It is such a juicily evil story — it would just fit the Pope's Bond villain image so well — but, and I really, really hate to defend the Vatican, I don't buy it.…

It's always party time in the exuberant thread, but now it's party time with magic tricks! (Current totals: 10,618 entries with 1,056,455 comments.)

Bleh. MSNBC is running a terrible article that claims they have "proof" that chickens came before eggs. It's just an awful mess, and one of the scientists is at least partly responsible. The scientists found that a protein found only in a chicken's ovaries is necessary for the formation of the egg…

Alonsoa unilabiata These are the only flowers I want in my garden. Thanks to Meg for sending it along!

We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And here is a website that tells you everything that will happen…in the Future! You may be excited to know that we have a specific date for the imminent demise of Christianity: 2240. It's all…

I know, I know already. We're getting creationist and religious ads appearing on the right sidebar. Seed has farmed out some of their ad space to a generic ad provider, which doesn't pay us much and which stuffs in ridiculous ads from any old desperate wanker who wants to buy some attention. In…