pharyngula

Father Kevin Gray had better things to do with his time. Apparently for the past seven years Gray has been spending church money to fund trips to New York and pay for sessions with male escorts, and he also racked up $200,000 in restaurant bills including a large tab at Tavern on the Green. It is…

Last week, the hilarity was that Rand Paul refused to say how old he thought the earth was. The new chew toys are creationist apologists for ignorance trying to justify it, while also refusing to state how old they think the earth is. The amusement lies in the way these guys puff themselves up into…

Blame Ed Yong. He started this business of asking readers to speak up, and now it's all over the place, so I guess I need to join in . In the comments below, tell me who you are, what your background is and what you do. What's your interest in science and your involvement with it? How did you come…

I just saw the TrophyWife™ to the door, where she's leaving for work. And from there, she's going to Minneapolis to spend the night. And then in the morning she's flying off to The Amazing Meeting 8, and I'm not. She's going to spend almost a week away, while I'm just a hyper-focused drudge with a…

This poll seems a little too understated: Do you miss George W Bush? It's complicated. I'm overjoyed that he's out of office, and disappointed that he's not in a cold dank cell for the rest of his life. All you get to do on this poll, though, is say yes, you miss him (258 votes) or no, you don't (…

There sure are a lot of tough godless women on youtube. Say hello to Zinnia Jones: We need to bring more people like this out into the public eye. Not a woman? Not a woman. I'm the one who is gender-confused, and it really doesn't matter — good stuff, and we still need to bring more people like…

I cannot stand the Huffington Post, that bastion of Newage folly. I really despise the Intelligent Design creationists. So when Huffpo gives space to creationist cretins, I'm done with them. Even worse, it's an idiot creationist parroting the same old story, that Hitler was Darwin's fault. I'll…

This is appalling. This video of a supposedly secular high school biology classroom will show you what we're up against. These students are simply expressing uninformed incredulity — they can't imagine how anything could have evolved. And the incompetent apologist of a teacher, who is sympathetic…

This is a horrific story out of India, and the weird thing is that everyone is condemning the bloody, violent end of the story, but treating the preliminaries as a matter of course. Here's the outline, as near as I can extract from a scattering of stories, often in poor English. In March, TJ Joseph…

Look for me in Canada, eh, on 30 July, at which time my book will be done and I'll look much less harried and may even be nice and polite and a little less bitey snarly mean, so that I can blend in better with the natives. That's my plan, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

The last time I got a glimpse of the wretched new book from Marilynne Robinson, the review was sufficient to dissuade me from bothering to ever read it. Now we have a positive review from Karen Armstrong, and I am now convinced that if ever I am confronted with this work, the only appropriate…

First homeopathy is decreed bogus and unsupportable by the NHS, and now this: UK doctors are declaring gay conversion therapy damaging and harmful. There is a bit of wishful thinking, but at least this sentiment is optimistic: Hopefully, anyone involved in the so-called treatment of homosexuality…

A caterpillar loves its wasp. Cotesia glomerata

Atheist Ireland is handing out a monthly award to the Really, Really True Believer™, and this month it goes to the anti-boobquake gang of Iran. Some Iranian clerics have sicced the vice police on department store mannequins, where they saw off the breasts of the shameless but inert hussies. Muslim…

I'm going south of the border on 13 November. You can join us.

Just in case you crazy people were so busy scribbling in the perennially distracting thread, here are some 4th of July fireworks. Blow up in the comments, if you'd like. (Current totals: 10,538 entries with 1,043,108 comments.)

The more skilled the slave, the more likely they are to break free. Where faith enlists knowledge to glorify itself, it opens itself to destruction from within. I was watching an old documentary, and one of my favorites, The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski, and one episode, The Grain in the Stone…

Glenn Beck really is certifiable. He's now pushing his own "university", staffed by a trio of right wing incompetents, with a tuition of $9.95 per month. His introductory curriculum is Faith 101, Hope 101, and Charity 101, titles which don't seem to have much to do with their contents. I look…

After their recent raid to expose information about child-raping priests, the Belgian police are facing another problem. Officials say that police are also looking into threats to the lives of some witnesses and magistrates connected to the case. Jean Marc Meillure, a spokesman for the public…

I don't envy Stephen Barrett at all, but this is going to be good. Barrett is the doctor behind QuackWatch a wonderful resource for exposing bogus medical claims. Among the many subjects of common charlatanry he's taken apart, one is the use of invalid tests to justify useless treatments, like…

The video below will hurt your brain, but don't worry, the pain will make you stronger. This is a mashup of a few homeopaths rationalizing their baloney, mixed in with Star Trek technobabble. One worry is that it might have the side effect of making you hate Trek, which isn't that bad — Star Trek…

Why, oh why do I despise Christianity so much? Look to George Berkin to understand why. And if you can't understand, you're probably one of those Christians. He's got a long article up arguing that God is being good to Christopher Hitchens by afflicting him with a lingering disease, because it will…

Austin has put up one of those mild, positive, and effective billboards that so rile up the faithful. It's impressive that it's happening in Texas, but I noticed something portentious in its placement: it's on I-35, a road familiar to me as the major north-south artery in this region (Minnesota and…

I think this edition of Bob the Angry Flower might resonate here.

I have allowed the amazing thread to go on a little too long, but my excuse is that I'm distracted. When I'm not trying to get some work done in my hotel room, I'm out among the milling hordes at Convergence. I warn you, the video below may horrify some…but these motley nerds, geeks, weirdos,…

Christina Pikas is a zombie doing reference searches. Sharon Astyk is a zombie wondering about zombie infrastructure. Greg Laden has always been a zombie, but now he's a zombie with bugs on his brain. Grrlscientist has discovered that zombies like turtles. Vince LiCata has determined that…

This is a scanned page from a Christian science textbook published by Bob Jones University. I think they've been listening to too much Insane Clown Posse. We're all just mindless zombies here at scienceblogs, but somehow, BJU is even more brainless. I swear, a creationist could walk by right now…

Isn't it beautiful?

I know you all think sharks are tough, vicious eating machines which have thrived for hundreds of millions of years, but many species face extinction from overfishing, unprincipled slaughter, and, well, the zombie menace. Seriously, they're at risk, and some organizations are working to save…