Fun stuff to read:
- Carnival of Education #128
- The Ever-Present Past: Your Nearest Site
- Friday Ark #148
- Carnival of the Liberals #43
- Skeptics’ Circle #65
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Fun stuff to read:
Don’t let the sight ruin your breakfast, but you can catch me babbling on bloggingheads right now. Don’t try to compare it to Sean Carroll’s star turn, OK?
Also note the traditional misspelling of my name. I’m thinking of doing a Prince or Madonna and getting it legally changed to just “PZ”.
The Countess dropped me a note to say I might get a laugh out of this list of the 100 Unsexiest Men of 2007, and I had a brief, horror-stricken thought that the reason was because I was on it. That’s the only reason I read the whole thing.
Dick Cheney is only at 77? There’s something wrong there.
This is excellent, but I have a request that I hope Roy grants someday — my personal favorite is “America” from his “Faulty Intelligence” CD. Trust me, it’s awesome.
Aww, heck, they’re all good. I also want to see him on The Daily Show, and playing on the White House lawn outside GW Bush’s window.
Of course it would be Phil who would remind me: today is the 38th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon. I remember lying on my stomach on the floor with my chin in my hands, watching TV in the way only 12 year olds can and which would nowadays leave me wondering if I’ll be able to get up again, the front door open, a summer breeze blowing through the screen, the sound of someone down the street mowing their lawns, and right there in front of me, in this ordinary day in a boring little small town, I saw these grainy echos of a human being stepping onto the moon. We can do that. It was hard, and only a tiny few of us have ever accomplished it, but here in our hands and in our minds we have this amazing power to accomplish astonishing things.
How are we going to accomplish our next miracle, do you think?
John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution. He used a textbook called A Civic Biology, by GW Hunter, which, if you ever seen it, is a rather awful book, and is certainly something we wouldn’t want poisoining our classrooms today. Michael Egnor, as behind the times and obtuse as ever, uses the ugly racism of A Civic Biology to falsely damn evolution. He quotes some nasty bits of the book, such as suggestions to prevent breeding with the feeble-minded and its equation of civilization with white skins, and then concludes with a foolish switcheroo.
It’s a Submissive Jesus figure — torture him by twisting his crown of thorns, and he’ll promise you anything. At last, a godhead that actually responds!
(via the J-Walk Blog)
I guess Mark A. R. Kleiman has won our little debate. His prize is that his position wins a starring role in a Jesus and Mo comic.
I just can’t compete with that. Case closed.
The Evolution Sunday project, which tries to recruit clergy to advocate good science at least once a year, has sent out a request for scientific expertise to help them. They’re well-meaning, but they need it. Try reading some of their collection of Evolution Sunday sermons, and what you’ll find is usually attempts to piggyback the validity of truth by religious revelation on the credibility of evidence-based reasoning.
I personally do not support the Evolution Sunday project — I think it benefits religion far more than it does science in that it lends support to superstition and taints evolution with nonsense — but in a truly ecumenical and catholic spirit, I’ll at least mention it for those of you who think otherwise.
Besides, imagine giving me a red pen and a sermon to edit. My eyes would start to glow, I’d channel the damned soul of Abdul Alhazred, and the end result would drive whole congregations mad.
After all, he got to have dinner with both Dawkins and Hitchens, at the same time. Simultaneously. Like they were in the same room having a conversation. That would have been an interesting table.
Cowan also has video of Dawkins’ talk at Kepler’s Bookstore—and yeah, P-Zed is mentioned, inducing a few blushes from 1500+ miles away.
