But what if I like dandelions?

Maybe we should sic Edward Tufte on ’em—Feministing found some amazing posters that purport to explain everything with the power of overwrought metaphor and cluttered, confusing cartoons. It just draws your eye in with the awesomeness of its arbitrariness.

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So contraception is the source of single-parent families and infanticide? The stalk of divorce leads to the flower of abortion? The leaves of adultery and pre-marital sex use sunlight and carbon dioxide to make the sugar of sexual chaos that is stored in the root of coitus interruptus? Watch out, kids, if you blow on the puffball of euthansia, you’ll spread the seeds of a thousand new sex weeds! Now go in the house and wash the lust and hedonism off your hands.

It just doesn’t make sense.

I realized, though, that anybody can slap random labels on a random diagram to send meaningless messages out. Even me. So here you go, a fun and informative diagram that will help you understand all kinds of curious relationships in the world around you.

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Please, use this information wisely and be sure to let it guide your life…to a brighter, healthier future, rich with the well-earned fruits of ying tong iddle I po.

Server update

We’ve been warned that there will be some server improvements made this evening, for the next few hours. You should still be able to see everything, but there may be commenting glitches while the upgrade is going on. Have no fear, we’re supposed to bounce back smoother and faster tomorrow.

Evolution of vascular systems

Once upon a time, in Paris in 1830, Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire debated Georges Léopole Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert,
Baron Cuvier on the subject of the unity of organismal form. Geoffroy favored the idea of a deep homology, that all animals shared a common archetype: invertebrates with their ventral nerve cord and dorsal hearts were inverted vertebrates, which have a dorsal nerve cord and ventral hearts, and that both were built around or within an idealized vertebra. While a thought-provoking idea, Geoffroy lacked the substantial evidence to make a persuasive case—he had to rely on fairly superficial similarities to argue for something that, to those familiar with the details, appeared contrary to reason and was therefore unconvincing. Evolutionary biology has changed that — the identification of relationships and the theory of common descent has made it unreasonable to argue against origins in a common ancestor — but that difficult problem of homology remains. How does one argue that particular structures in organisms divided by 600 million years of change are, in some way, based on the same ancient organ?

One way is sheer brute force. Characterize every single element of the structures, right down to the molecules of which they are made, and make a quantitative argument that the weight of the evidence makes the conclusion that they are not related highly improbable. I’ll summarize here a recent paper that strongly supports the idea of homology of the vertebrate and arthropod heart and vascular systems.

[Read more…]

Bad writers shouldn’t piss off good writers

That crazy pseudoscientific hack, Michael Crichton, has screwed up big time. In a teeny-tiny tantrum against a critic, he made up a character in his latest book with a similar name and background who also happens to be a depraved rapist of infants. Now the obliquely defamed critic makes a measured reply.

I confess to having mixed feelings about my sliver of literary immortality. It’s impossible not to be grossed out on some level–particularly by the creepy image of the smoldering Crichton, alone in his darkened study, imagining in pornographic detail the rape of a small child. It’s uplifting, however, to learn that Next’s sales have proved disappointing by Crichton’s standards, continuing what an industry newsletter dubs Crichton’s “recent pattern of erosion.” And I’m looking forward to the choice Crichton will have to make, when asked about the basis for Mick Crowley, between a comically dishonest denial and a confession of his shocking depravity.

Poor Crichton. The honest skewering is always more potent than the lying slander. I gave up on reading his books after Jurassic Park, and I can see I won’t be picking up any in the future, either.

Another legal victory for evolution

Creationism gets another defeat: the Cobb County case about the textbook stickers has been settled, and the bad guys have surrendered.

In an agreement announced today, Cobb County school officials state that they will not order the placement of “any stickers, labels, stamps, inscriptions, or other warnings or disclaimers bearing language substantially similar to that used on the sticker that is the subject of this action.” School officials also agreed not to take other actions that would undermine the teaching of evolution in biology classes.

I will make my by now familiar disclaimer: this is very good news, but no minds will have been changed by this decision. This is a stopgap success, and we need to press on to improve science literacy, rather than just not degrading it further.

And the winner is…

Phil has conceded, and I’ve received official verification that Pharyngula is indeed the winner of the Best Science Blog award.

I have no illusions, though: this really isn’t a recognition that I have the best science blog, it’s evidence that I can put together a really good PR campaign that will turn out the vote for a meaningless weblog award. Yay! If you want a hint on how to get people riled up, though, one good way is the Pro Wrestling method: turn it into a grudge match, with lots of bellowing and thrown chairs. Phil Plait collaborated on this contrived conflict to turn out the partisans, and it worked incredibly well—he and I split 82% of the vote, leaving only scraps for the others (which was grossly unfair to them, and I apologize.)

Speaking of pro wrestling, I must remind everyone that the battle royale between us was completely fake. All that gore? Syrup and food coloring. The teeth we were spitting out? Chiclets. That attack with the folding chair? Note that I hit him with it on the flat to distribute the impact. There is no bad blood between us, I think Bad Astronomy is a terrific site that I read daily, and that I would not have been at all chagrined if the final votes had broken his way at the end. Heck, there wasn’t a bad blog among all the candidates in this category, so I would have been happy to see any of them win. Here, by the way, is the list: I think you’ll agree that I was in very good company, and that the final ranking is not an indicator of the relative quality of their science, but only of their effectiveness at vainglorious self-promotion. Read them all!

Almost all of these were already on my blogroll, so I’ve been reading them all along.

Finally, there is the matter of a little wager. I had bet that if I lost, I’d put together a post that would appeal to a bunch of space-happy astronomy freaks, and that I’d pose for the SkepDudes calendar. Phil likewise promised to praise Pharyngula on his blog and to promote me at the Amazing Meeting this January. These “penalties” were all selected in a spirit of good fun, and just to show that that is the case, I’ll be writing that post anyway, and hey, SkepChick, if you’re still interested, I’ll do the picture (that’ll teach you rude meanies who voted for me because of your distaste for my pasty-pale, sluglike body!).