pharyngula

While we were all distracted by the recent Crackerclysm, we shouldn't forget the shenanigans in Texas. The hearings have begun, led by the mad creationist dentist, Don McLeroy, and the Texas Board of Education is gearing up to dilute science education further, and introduce new silliness. Stand up…

I guess that since the Catholic League was unable to fire up a stake in Minnesota, they're going to push for some success in Florida. Webster Cook has been impeached, and now look at this: his friend Benjamin Collard who was there but not involved in the heinous crime of not eating a cracker is…

You may remember Edmondson as the creator of the Beware the Believers viral video — he took a little time to immortalize a recent event. Richard Dawkins gets lucky in this one.

Randy Pausch, 23 October 1960-25 July 2008

The president of Baylor, John M. Lilley, was fired abruptly yesterday. He demonstrated insufficient dedication to their "faith mission", so of course he had to go. I'm sure the ID crowd will be pleased — by encouraging a stronger "Christian vision", the next president of the university will…

We were supposed to have a new edition of the Tangled Bank this week, at the Blue Collar Scientist — but has more serious real-life issues with which to contend, so unsurprisingly it has not made it up yet, and I haven't heard back from my email query. If I don't hear anything by this afternoon,…

Sepia smithi Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.

Most of you haven't seen Sizzle, but there is one global warming denier in the movie who is a wonderfully strange character, Dr Chilingar. He is interestingly idiosyncratic, but the movie didn't really pursue his views very far…but Tim Lambert has. Chilingar is guilty of comparing CO2 over billions…

How sad. I no longer have the lead headline at Spirit Daily: I've been bumped by WORRIES ON POTTER BEAR OUT IN AN EXPLOSION OF TEEN WITCHCRAFT. How fickle these Catholics are, and how easily they are frightened by imaginary concerns. (By the way, Spirit Daily is one of the best places to go if you…

Regular commenter Patricia sent me a present — isn't this pretty? The octopus pendant is also very nice. You can get your own at the Emerson Glass Art Studio, if you're envious. Thanks, Patricia! I will get it away from my cervical model someday, I'm sure.

P.S. All you happy Minnesotans should be pleased to hear that Roy will be in Minneapolis on 1-4 September. I'll be sure to put up details as they become available.

It is finished. I wonder how many of our Catholic friends have heard of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215? This is the event where many of their important dogmas were codified, including the ideas of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, that the Eucharist was the sacrament that only properly ordained…

On his last visit to the US, Richard Dawkins was having little conversations with various people — people like Steven Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss, and David Buss — and recording them. Now you can get them on DVD. It's a clever and understated idea; instead of having these guys lecture at a crowd,…

This is just to handle the overflow from this closed thread. You crackerbaters are insane.

You know nothing is sacred around here. Well, I saw The Dark Knight last night and … didn't care for it. It was OK as an action movie, but the story was a mess. The plot wandered all over, and the movie seemed less interested in telling a story well than in throwing up moral ambiguity and ethical…

Yes, the sad little cracker has met its undignified end, so stop pestering me. The cracker, the koran, and another surprise entry have been violated and are gone. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the details, what little of them there are. I must quickly apologize to all you good Catholics…

Olivia Judson has a lovely article about ongoing examples of evolution. Before the creationists start whining, I know — they're still birds and lizards and flies. Get over it. They've changed, as evolution predicts.

Life has two contradictory properties that any theory explaining its origin must encompass: similarities everywhere, and differences separating species. So far, the only theory that covers both beautifully and explains how one is the consequence of the other is evolution. Common descent unites all…

Nick Spencer of the Telegraph says Americans don't do atheism. It's a weird piece that frets over the religiosity of American politicians, but somehow seems to find it reassuring that there are different ways to be religious, and that maybe the US is moving away from dominionist wackaloonery…

This is a nicely done essay prompted by the papal poltroonery that has been going on in Sydney recently. Here are a few bits: I don't give a stuff what people believe in, but it won't stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption? Telling me I'm going to hell won't…

One of our regular commenters here, BrokenSoldier, has a story to tell — an all-too-common tale of our government's neglect of the men and women sent out to fight, and returning damaged to a bureaucracy that isn't willing to do the right thing and support them. If anyone out there is willing to…

Here's another one for the files. This guy has sent me several menacing messages — nothing new there — but now he has announced that he's coming to visit me. I've put the header for one of Mr Moore's creepy threats below the fold, for the record. His specific email address is not included, so we…

Epigenetics is the study of heritable traits that are not dependent on the primary sequence of DNA. That's a short, simple definition, and it's also largely unsatisfactory. For one, the inclusion of the word "heritable" excludes some significant players — the differentiation of neurons requires…

Bill Donohue has once again issued a press release, urging all of his followers to harass my in-box. Once again, my email is rendered useless by a flood of idiots sending me bizarre tirades and links to Catholic fables and threats. There is a new change in tone: now lots of them are gloating that…

This Sunday, I'm going to be on Atheists Talk radio, and I'm actually going into the Twin Cities to do it live and in person. The gang who do the show like to head out to Q. Cumbers restaurant afterwards—and the invitation is open to everyone. If you'd care to join us for a Pharyngubrunch, meet us…

Something Awful has put together a collection of photoshopped Reverse Magazines — this one tickled my fancy.

John McCain is very concerned about the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border. Hint: It's a very  w i d e  border.

It's been a high-stress week — not because of anything on the blog, I assure you, since that's all been chaos over trivialities — but because all my recent travel has put me far behind on a lot of work, with missed deadlines and heaps of writing that had to be done right now. A significant chunk of…

How about a little extreme right wing paranoia to start your morning? Global warming is the perfect excuse to do what the Left always wanted to do - to destroy faith (Christianity), the family and freedom. There is no area of our lives that will not be invaded through taxation, control, regulation…

This time it's the American Freethought Podcast.