pharyngula

I love xkcd despite the fact of the creator's obvious physics bias, but it looks like he's finally learning to appreciate the power of biology, too. Science is the tool that defines our culture, like flint handaxes or pottery beakers defined previous cultures, and it's a generalized tool that cuts…

Ah, screw it, I'm not even going to try to unravel this one. Chose you from many Atheists on the marching band War... Speaking with many about this act, "its" strange that these atheists would do this, when they spend months organizing their gays parades and atheists events no christians show up…

Somebody is angling for an Ig-Nobel, I think. Apparently, it's a Danish myth that you can absorb alcohol through your feet, so soaking your feet in a tub of spirits is a way to get drunk (they also mention that soaking your feet in beet juice will make your urine red, but they didn't test that one…

In their invisible feasibility study, proponents of the very silly Ark theme park in Kentucky claimed it would create 900 jobs. Now a mysterious consultant claims it will be even more effective: The ripple effect of the first year in job creation will be over 14,000 new jobs. But wait! That's not…

Creationists say the weirdest things. Every once in a while, someone sends me a creationist quote that reveals exactly how clueless and ignorant these guys are, because they start lecturing people on biology, a subject they clearly know nothing about. We've got a local boy named Brock Lee in…

Did you hear? Captain Beefheart is dead, but the weird thread goes…with the world's weirdness diminished a little bit. (Current totals: 11,538 entries with 1,219,079 comments.)

Oh, man, my least favorite pseudoscientific cliche from movies and TV is the hackneyed "zoom in on that reflection in the eye of the guy we caught on the el cheapo RS-170 B&W surveillance cam and recorded on VHS…if we blow it up enough, we'll be able to identify the killer!" It's painfully…

On Atheist Talk radio on Sunday morning at 9am Central time, James Kakalios will be joining the gang at Minnesota Atheists to talk about his new book, The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). It should be very…

I'm so used to our do-nothing Democrats accomplishing nothing that I'm pleasantly surprised that they actually managed to repeal the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy afflicting our military. Congratulations, gay servicepeople! Unfortunately, now we have to worry about marines' legs falling off, and…

"We reject Satan and all his works and all his empty promises" The horror, the horror. The war has spread to Jutland, where a rogue priest is rounding up elves and hanging them from the church eaves. You bastards! They were so innocent and jolly! Now who's going to make all the toys for Christmas?

I got a request to collect participants for an online survey on science fiction — take a look and help out if you want. It's long, and a little depressing: it's a list of science fiction movies and TV shows, and you're supposed to rate their scientific accuracy. I think I'm rather picky about that…

As the steady paycheck from the old Addams Family series slowed to a trickle, and as the heady days of the Hollywood films ended, the Thing descended to working in porn to support his manicure addiction, performing degrading acts for the jaded, cynical crowd at The Thread. That's creepy as hell.…

This is a remarkable bit of news about the magical Ark Encounter in Kentucky. You know that feasibility study, the one written by Ken Ham's good buddy and co-author, the one that justified the them park because it would bring in 900 good jobs and swarms of tourists? The governor never saw it.…

This is fun for a little while—Google has made their BodyBrowser available, a handy little tool that lets you explore the anatomy of the human body. It only works with the new Google Chrome web browser, unfortunately, and it doesn't do much, other than spin and click a rather rigidly fixed anatomy…

Sorry, fellow atheists, but if you thought you could just get away with sitting quietly and not making a noise, you're doomed. The situation is worse than simply some silly believers flying into a snit because horribly militant, aggressive, obnoxious atheists put up signs that say something…

Piglet Squid

There is some faint concern from the Kentucky governor that the Ark theme park will discriminate in hiring — I doubt that it will become a major sticking point. But still, it's true, they will be selective in their hiring based on religious belief. They say that isn't true, but one thing we know…

Last final exam for my intro biology class has just been turned in. Somebody gimme a beer. Now.

I know this struggle well. Good teaching involves getting the students actively involved and asking questions and thinking about the material, and it's hard work sometimes to wake them up. For example, my last lecture in our introductory biology course is always about bioethics, where I bring up a…

It's the last day of finals week here at UMM, and lucky me, I have two exams scheduled back-to-back today…so I'm about to go into the classroom and proctor away (the most boring task in all of teaching), and I don't emerge again until at least 3:30. But then the semester is done! Except for the…

Don't say I never do you any favors, acolytes of the endless thread. I'm about to spare you the need to see the latest cheap, unimaginative Hollywood dreck to hit the theaters by showing you the ending of the new Yogi Bear movie. Bring the kids around, tell 'em to see what the new kiddie movie is…

You've been wondering about that, too, haven't you? Prepare to be disappointed again, because the source of this bit of egregious misinformation is none other than that raving nutcase, Mike Adams of NaturalNews. He claims that astrology has a scientific basis: Skeptics must be further bewildered by…

You've been wondering, haven't you. Good theories involve both substantiating evidence for a phenomenon and an explanation of the mechanism, and homeopathy has had neither: no evidence that it works (and plenty that it doesn't), and no rational explanation for how it works, unless you count…

The City Church of San Diego has a website with a fill-in-the-blank statement you're supposed to complete, and they're actually displaying the results, after they've been approved…and it looks like they've been reasonably liberal in their approvals. Help 'em out. Tell them what JESUS IS ______. I…

Pucker up! Unless you're English, in which case you may soon have no excuses for smoochies ever again.

Color me unsurprised. They are lovely young men and I'm sure many others here will enjoy the show.

A reader from Austria sent in a photo of a very special nativity scene. None of it is on my diet, but I thought maybe a few readers would appreciate it, and maybe even be inspired to recreate it in their holiday celebrations. Is this another salvo in the War on Christmas? Or does reverence for…

Poor Ken Ham is getting mocked everywhere for his Creation "Museum" and proposed Disneyland for Dummies, so he has put up a post defending Kentucky. It's a remarkably weak argument (no surprise there, that's all he can do), which mainly lists famous people who have been born there and occasional…

Face it. Star Wars sucked. Even the original movie, which I remember fondly and vastly enjoyed watching, was horribly written — that George Lucas did not have an ear for dialog, and once he drifted away from a simple mythic archetype couldn't put a plot together to save his life, was something that…

I was sent this link to an apologist defending Christianity against rationalist requests for evidence, and I was unimpressed — all he's got is repeated claims that the Bible says Jesus was lord of the universe, which is not a good argument. I can also point to the Lord of the Rings, which says…