pharyngula

Aww, the students of Campus Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists have warmed the frigid, friable cockles of my black heart. They're having a protest of homeopathy on the Twin Cities campus this Friday! They're hosting a lecture debunking that nonsense, and are planning to poison themselves with…

I gave them an exam, that's what. That and long boring lecturings at 8am on pattern formation in the nervous system. But otherwise, I've had them blogging, so we can take a peek into the brain of a typical college student and see what actually engages them. Neural stem cells. Zeta inhibitory…

John Wilkins is an unemployed philosopher right now, so he's looking for donations to tide him over. Give him a little assistance if you can, especially since he's threatening to have a god take him to heaven if we don't cough up. Let's not give a damned agnostic an excuse to wobble over the…

That wacky climate change denier and radio weather broadcaster Anthony Watts took a brave step a while back, and I commend him for it. He was enthused about an independent research project, the Berkeley Earth Project, that would measure the planet's temperature over the last centuries and compare…

According to Ussher, the world was created the evening before 23 October 4004BC, which means that our planet should now be 6015 years old, as of tonight. She really let herself go, I'm afraid. I swear, she looks about 4½ billion years old. Motherhood is tough, but I didn't know it was that bad. (…

(Also on FtB)

I've been buried in classes and meetings today, and I look up and discover Ghadafi has been killed, and people here are already talking about it. I guess I should put up a thread so you can stuff all the words into one common place. (Also on FtB)

In my previous post, I described the misguided approach Gauger and Axe have taken to criticizing evolution, and one of the peculiarities of their criticism is that they cited another paper by a paper by Carroll, Ortlund, and Thornton which traced (successfully) the evolutionary history of a class…

The Discovery Institute has me on a mailing list for their newsletter, Nota Bene. That's probably unwise: usually I just glance at it, see another ignorant bit of fluff from Luskin or Nelson or one of the other usual suspects, and I snigger and hit 'delete', but sometimes they brag about how they'…

(Also on FtB)

Want to spend an hour cringing and twitching? This is the abridged version of "Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision", and you will suffer if you watch it. It is a wasteful, terrible thing to do to a child. One rabbi interviewed is at least honest about circumcision: "It's painful, it's…

Quick! Come up with a way to pit creationists against climate change deniers! (Also on FtB)

Creationists have this idea that history can be nothing but an unremitting decline — their version of the second law of thermodynamics is a weird thing that has everything ratcheting down into chaos equally, with no possibility of local decreases in entropy at the expense of an overall greater…

A group of scientists have done the right thing: they authored an environmental report, and are now publicizing the changes the Texas state administration tried to impose on it. This is going to backfire on the politicians: rather than hiding away the science that conflicts with their ideology, the…

(Also on FtB)

You've probably heard the story going around that Steve Jobs' death was avoidable, if only he hadn't been so gullible as to steep himself in quack medicine. It turns out, though, that the story is a lot more complicated than that: David Gorski has written the best summary I've seen so far. In short…

(Also on FtB)

There's nothing wrong about being pretty, or sexy, or shopping, or being interested in traditionally girly things—but there is a big problem when that's the only option you're given. I know I'd be stressed if I were constantly told I'm less of a man if I'm not playing football or working in a manly…

(via National Geographic) (Also on FtB)

Students in California were participating in a big project: they were helping to raise tens of thousands of salmon to be released into San Francisco Bay. The release of the smolts was imminent, and a party was planned to honor the people who had helped, when animal rights activists cut the nets and…

Shorter Deepak: "Richard Dawkins didn't endorse my quantum bullshit, therefore The Magic of Reality sucks!" Deepak Chopra actually sounds quite upset — his review of the book reads more like the indignant squawk of a charlatan furious that the presence of a skeptic might cut into his take. It's…

Since I just got back from Texas, it's only fitting to show this beast in a characteristic action pose: (via National Geographic) (Also on FtB)

At first I thought this discovery was really cool, because I love the idea of ancient giant cephalopods creating art and us finding the works now. But then, reality sinks in: that's a genuinely, flamboyantly extravagant claim, and the evidence better be really, really solid. And it's not. It's…

This collection of cephalopod-themed political cartoons reveals a tragic bigotry: anything with lots of tentacles always gets characterized as the villain. Can't they see? More arms just means a greater ability to give hugs! (Also on FtB)

It's no contest. The sea pig has everything a mere cat lacks: it's cute and adorable, it's pink, and it's got tentacles. Once you've gone holothurian, you'll never go…uh, I'm sure the local poet will be along to provide a catchy rhyme. (Also on FtB)

Too late! My talk is all over. There is one writeup already, there were people in the audience with cameras so something will appear on youtube soon, and the convention had professional videographers present, so maybe you'll see it sometime soon. Or you could invite me out to whereever you are to…

(via Zooillogix) (Also on FtB)

How dare Terry Pratchett release his new book, Snuff, next week, on top of the new stuff from Dawkins and Pinker? Hasn't he been paying any attention to my schedule? It's an Inspector Vimes novel, too. Yes, I've preordered it. I cannot resist temptation. (Also on FtB)

(via National Geographic) (Also on FtB)

I'm typing this on a Mac laptop. I heard about it while browsing the news on my iPad. I have an iPhone in my pocket. There's an iPod in my bedroom that we use for alarm and music. I bought my first Mac in 1984; I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on an Apple II. Maybe you use a Windows machine, but face it:…