I found this commercial very affirming. Also, the original Star Trek was better than all those derivative new versions.
(via io9.)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I found this commercial very affirming. Also, the original Star Trek was better than all those derivative new versions.
(via io9.)
Rush Limbaugh’s network has lost millions of dollars this past quarter, and he may be on the way out. Apparently, the problem is that advertisers have fled his show in droves, especially after his rages against Sandra Fluke. But you knew he’d have an excuse: it’s all the women’s fault.
Despite sources close to Limbaugh that accuse Dickey of scapegoating the radio host for a bad quarter, Limbaugh himself has addressed his advertiser woes in the past. But Limbaugh doesn’t see his offensive bloviating as the problem driving mainstream advertisers away; instead, he accuses media buyers who are ”young women fresh out of college” and “liberal feminists who hate conservatism” of “trying to harm” him.
I had no idea that women now controlled all the media; did you women reading this know you had such immense power?
Now I have a few requests. Right after you’re done flushing Limbaugh’s career down the toilet, could you shut down Fox News and Glenn Beck (well, you’ve been doing a good job on him so far), and perhaps redirect some small fraction of those advertising dollars to Freethoughtblogs.com? Thanks, much appreciated.
Eugenie Scott is planning to retire from the NCSE. This is not possible. There is no one fit to replace her!
Although…perhaps I should apply for the job. I looked at the qualifications, and it was like looking in a mirror, man — especially that last bit about “the ability to work effectively and diplomatically with diverse communities and allies”. It sounds just like me, right, gang? I should go for it.
Look here, we’re like clones of each other! If I can so perfectly emulate her lecturing gestures, there’s no reason to assume I won’t be as great at the rest.
<quick cut to directors of the NCSE, all looking horrified…then scrambling to find more inducements to Genie to keep her on>
Christian de Duve won the Nobel prize in 1974 (along with Claude and Palade) for his work on the biochemistry of the cell. He also wrote several books on the origin and evolution of life. Here he is speaking at the Lindau meetings a few years ago.
Christian de Duve is now dead at 95, by euthanasia.
“It would be an exaggeration to say I’m not afraid of death, but I’m not afraid of what comes after because I’m not a believer. When I disappear I will disappear, there’ll be nothing left,” he told the Belgian daily Le Soir just a month ago.
De Duve had decided to commit euthanasia after suffering a fall in his home but was awaiting the arrival of his son from the United States in early May in order to die surrounded by family.
“He left us serenely and refused to take anti-anxiety pills before the final injection. He left with a smile and a good-bye,” his daughter Francoise told Le Soir.
What a dignified and honorable way to go!
Half a million Islamists marched in Bangladesh, chanting their desire to murder people who don’t believe in their demented, angry god. I take that personally — they want to kill people like me, for the crime of not thinking as they do. If I’d been there, that mob would have torn me to pieces.
And it’s not just atheists they hate. Women must live in service to the men, they are to have their rights diminished. Education is to be crippled, reduced to rote memorization of their holy books. This is awful, poisonous stuff, and I condemn it without reservation.
But let me remind you, the United States has been carrying out routine drone attacks against Muslims…attacks that kill children.
So angry mobs threaten and howl and promise to roll their culture back to the Middle Ages. Americans calmly sit in air-conditioned rooms and push buttons and joysticks and send robots through the skies to pour death on civilians. Obama calmly rationalizes the murders and cracks jokes about predator drones.
One side wants to kill people like me, is furious and destructive, and rages passionately about killing the Other; the other side wants to kill people outside our borders, is calm and dispassionate, and marshals machines to execute the Other without risk to ourselves.
I cannot condemn one without condemning the other. Especially since our tactics seem to be so much more effective at butchering people.
I’m in Arizona, on my way to Orange County, but that doesn’t stop me: I’ve given my students a take home final exam. I wouldn’t want them to be bored over finals week, you know.
1. In the last lecture, I tried to give you a little context, and explained that a dynamic picture of biology would include evolution, ecology, and development, all subdisciplines that deal with change over time. You’re all upper level students; explain to me how developmental biology fits into the perspective on biology that your experience here at UMM has given you so far. Are there pieces you wish our curriculum emphasized more? Why?
2. We’ve spent most of the semester talking about animals — as it currently stands, evo-devo has an unfortunately limited emphasis on metazoans, with an occasional nod to higher plants. Explore a little deeper. What would an evo-devo of fungi, or bacteria, or protists talk about? Is the toolkit we’ve been talking about truly universal? Give me a brief precis of the developmental principles for any other kingdom.
3. Imagine that after you graduate, you find yourself in an unexpected job: you’re working in university press office or as a science journalist. You have to explain scientific research to the public every day. What general principles would guide you? These should be ideas about ethics, effective communication, psychology, etc. in addition to purely scientific concerns. Tell me what standards you’d have to become a great reporter of science.
There. That should make them think.
I hate the way chemistry has been infantilized to the point where you can’t even buy a decent home chemistry kit for kids anymore, but this story takes it a step further. A teenager in Florida did a simple experiment that made a small plastic bottle go boom and spew out some smoke (and no one was hurt, although apparently the student was surprised), and the school over-reacted: they expelled her.
It was a simple reaction: aluminum + sodium hydroxide releases hydrogen gas and the pressure ruptures the bottle. It was also a poor decision to do it unsupervised in a school yard, but good grief…kicking her out of school means that interest is now quelled. Channel that perfectly reasonable curiosity into constructive academic pursuits! This school seems to be more concerned with shutting down exploration and keeping everyone unchallenged and safe than in engaging in that dangerous business of education.
It was the last day of classes for us. I brought donuts.
Dammit, I just realized I missed a golden opportunity. I should have talked to them about Thrive and Pivar and Fleury and Andrulis. Crackpot fringe developmental biologists all seem to have a thing for donuts.
Rats. Well, I’ll just send all my students an email and tell them they have to come back. They don’t even realize the importance of our little snack together.
The Morris movie theater is going all out and having a midnight premier of the new Iron Man 3 movie, and I was mildly disappointed that I was going to have to postpone seeing it because I’ll be at the Orange County Freethought Alliance convention. But now I am greatly disappointed, because I have seen the trailer, and it blows my mind.
Awesome. So awesome. I hope I’m not disappointed when I finally see the whole movie, because this sets expectations phenomenally high.
It is possible to have a conscientious opposition to research on animals, and every university has channels by which activists can register their dissent, and by which they can also influence ethical decisions made by institutional animal research review committees. There is a right way and a wrong way to protest. And the wrong way is charge into a lab, disrupt experiments in progress, and “liberate” highly inbred, specialized animals that are dependent on laboratory care for their health and survival. Protesters in Milan chose the wrong way.
Activists occupied an animal facility at the University of Milan, Italy, at the weekend, releasing mice and rabbits and mixing up cage labels to confuse experimental protocols. Researchers at the university say that it will take years to recover their work.
Many of the animals at the facility are genetic models for psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
I don’t even understand the mindset here. Where are you going to release lab animals to? They may require special diets and care, they most likely have been raised in a very specific environment and have no ability to cope with a different place, and they may have genetic diseases that make them completely unable to compete with wild forms. Years ago at the University of Oregon, ALF pulled a stunt like this; they released lab-bred animals along the side of I5. The only animals to benefit in the area were the red-tailed hawks who saw a sudden bounty of terrified white rodents.
And further, scrambling the data for research into human neurological disorders accomplishes nothing other than slowing research. Why? This is nothing but hatred of science.
There’s not much one can do in the face of determined stupidity other than to show a united front. Sign the Call for Solidarity with the scientists in Milan.
