Alas, I fear that if I let myself be bitten by a squid, all I’d get for my trouble is a very nasty infection, and possibly a few toxins.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Alas, I fear that if I let myself be bitten by a squid, all I’d get for my trouble is a very nasty infection, and possibly a few toxins.
Who would have thought these words would ever be typed by me? I’m looking forward to Ann Coulter’s new book.
It’s called Godless(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll). Apparently, Ann Coulter has written a book about me, although I suspect that she’ll instead be pretending that people like me are representative of the Democratic Party as a whole. I wish.
I’m sure it will be insightful, nuanced, and meticulously researched. Maybe Al Franken and I should get together in a summer book club to discuss it.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.
Ann Coulter
P.S. Please don’t buy it. I’m not planning to, myself (although if the publisher wants to send me a review copy, I’ll gleefully read it and review it), but I just know my local library will be getting it.
P.P.S. I’m also amused at the image of Ann Coulter as an icon of Christian thought.
It feels like cartoon day on Pharyngula, but this one is so good I had to mention it. Tom Tomorrow takes on Saint Thomas DeLay.
Creationists are always carping about that darned methodological naturalism and how we don’t make room for supernatural explanations. How about if we make a deal: we’ll reserve the boring ol’ natural explanations for things like Tiktaalik, and the creationists can move on to bring their deep knowledge of the supernatural to bear on more relevant questions, like Divine Evolution? That should keep them occupied for a while.
A proscription on all transitional forms would make it far easier to load the Ark—it would have been empty!
P.S. If you’re completely baffled by the title, it refers to Woodmorappe’s infamous statistical error: calculating the feasibility of Noah’s Ark by estimating average animal size using the median instead of the mean.
Don’t watch it if you’d rather not hear how nonsensical that book is.
By the way, the biblical scholar they’ve got on there, Paul Meyer, is no relation, and he’s so darned wrong he doesn’t even know how to spell his name correctly.
The tetrapod isn’t surprising…you know you’re a science nerd when the first thing you wonder is what the flowering plants are doing in the Devonian. It also makes me wonder just how old Bob the Angry Flower is.
Yes, it’s true: DeLay has said something with which I find myself in accord.
Last Tuesday Mr. DeLay spoke at “The War on Christians” conference during which he agreed with the central theme – that there is, indeed, a “war on Christians” in America today. He went on to say that America treats Christianity like a “second-rate superstition.”
I don’t agree with the first bit, of course: there is no “war on Christians”, although I think maybe there should be a rather more work on putting Christianity in its proper place (in the home and in people’s entirely personal beliefs, and out of government, the workplace, and public education). I am happy to see, though, that someone else has noticed that religious beliefs are just glorified superstitions.
There are important questions remaining. DeLay seems to be aware of a rating scale for superstitions with which I am unfamiliar. What distinguishes a second-rate from a first-rate superstition? Is the scale like the burn scale, where a third-rate superstition would be much, much worse than a first-rate superstition, or is it more embarrassing to believe in a first-rate superstition?
Working out the details of his scoring system for superstitions would be a good project for Mr DeLay in his retirement. I daresay he’d even be able to work on writing it up from a jail cell.
Man, you know a science blog has completely sold out when they try and drum up more readers with sex and nudity.
In the rural fastness of Western Minnesota, a legend grows. A man so nerdly that his infamy spreads far and wide; when people see shell-less molluscs, his name leaps to their lips; when geeks and nerds gather, they all whisper the same thing: “Pee-Zee” (or, as the Canadians and Dr Who fans would say, “Pee-Zed.”)
Yes, in yet another of a string of geek honors, I have been invited to the GeekProm, to be held in the Science Museum of Minnesota on 22 April. There will be spaz-dancing, cow-eye dissections, and a talent show, and some couple will be crowned King and Queen Geek.
Obviously, I deserve to go to this. What you may not realize, O Unsuspecting Readers, is that by reading this site you too are now fully certified Geeks and Nerds. Sorry about that, but it is infectious, and you have only yourselves to blame. I’m also afraid that there aren’t any scientists interested in working on a cure, so you’re just going to have to live with your punishment…and show up to out-spaz me on the dance floor.
See you all there.
