The intelligent design creationists are jubilant — a paper has been published that shows that organisms were front-loaded with genes for future function! It describes “‘latent’ or ‘preexistent’ evolutionary potential” in our history, they say.

One small problem. The paper says nothing of the kind. It does mention latent potential, but it means something entirely different from something that is ‘front-loaded’, which is a sneaky little elision on the part of the creationists. There isn’t even the faintest whiff of a teleological proposal in the paper at all, which makes me wonder if they even read it, or if, as seems more likely, they’re simply incapable of comprehending the scientific literature.

So let’s take a look at what the paper is actually about, and you’ll see that it in no way supports the self-serving cheering of the creationists.

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Perhaps you’ll appreciate this little ditty for Roy Zimmerman and family.

That guy Ben Goldacre just blew my mind. What is the most popular cosmetic surgery in Asia? Blepharoplasty. Many people want to have the Western “double eyelid”, while I didn’t even know I had a double eyelid until I saw a few comparison pictures! In addition to plastic surgery, people buy cheap plastic gadgets to create a wrinkle, or use ugly do-it-yourself methods with acid and double eyelid tape (yes, there is such a product).

I am rather weirded out. A wrinkle I never even noticed before, or at least took for granted, is apparently a mark of beauty to some people who lack one. That’s just screwed up. Or, more interestingly, it’s an indication of how much attention people pay to the details of eyes.

(via The Telegraph)

The Countess has been nominated for various awards for her writing, and she’d like our help in getting the word out.

I warned her that you people aren’t a flock of sheep who will just follow the beckoning, nubile arm of any horror/fantasy author who cocks an enticing eyebrow at them, so I twisted her arm a bit. If she wins an award with our help, she will write a story just for us. Isn’t that incentive enough? I thought about demanding that it include cephalopods, but decided I’d rather be surprised. So go vote, maybe we’ll get a story!

(Does anyone else feel a bit like a Lost Boy now?)

This is a rough situation: a graduate student from New Zealand, working here in the US, got that sorrowful phone call telling her that her father had died. You know how graduate students are — poor. So she needs some help, and is asking for donations. There are a lot of us, you know, so if we each chipped in just a little bit, we can help her through these difficult times.

I was a grad student once, and I also got that same sad phone call on the day after Christmas, 15 years ago. At least I didn’t have to fly to the other side of the world to say farewell.

This year’s Edge question was What will change everything? What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? As usual, a lot of interesting people offered diverse answers, and you can read them all there.

You’ve probably got better answers. Feel free to leave them here in the comments.

And if you want to hear New Year’s greetings from a collection of godless geeks and weirdos, listen to the Two Smokin’ Hot Freethinkers Podcast.

Here at the Pharyngula Phortress, we’ll be ringing in the New Year with delicious root beer floats before toddling off to a good night’s sleep.

Get ready for the War on New Year.

Apparently the forces of darkness are mounting an attack, this time on the Christian holiday of New Year’s Day, which commemorates and worshipfully celebrates the anniversary of the day on which a Romanian monk miscalculated the year in which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was born. In addition to the anticalendricals, it seems that the Chinese, Jews, and Muslims are all opting out and deciding to celebrate other days as their new year. More recently the ranks of these heathen have apparently been joined by the ancient Babylonians. Worse still, countless American companies are yielding to the pressure from these groups, and instructing them to wish people “Happy New Years Day” rather than “Happy New Year’s Day”.

This is just a warm-up. Next we make an assault on that pagan festival of lust, Valentine’s Day, and then comes the big push to reconquer Easter in the name of the ancient fertility goddess. That one will be tricky — they keep moving the date around to confuse us.

When last I mentioned Terry Pratchett, it was unfortunate news: he’s been afflicted with embuggerance. Now, though, there is cause for some jubilation, since a certain godless humorist and fantasy author has been awarded a knighthood for his services to literature. Three cheers for an honor well deserved!

He also has a new book, which I’ll have to pick up. He must not be too deeply embuggered.