Pharyngutopia » « History doesn’t burn easily

Happy Birthday to me!

i-f7715fa9f7ae3775d4a5dd8825ffe966-baby_me.jpg

Here it is, my 49th birthday, and it’s spring break. My wife’s at work, my daughter is at school, all the students are away, it’s dead quiet around here. How to celebrate? I know! I’m going to do some guest lectures at the local high school!

So that’s where I’ll be this morning, introducing high school kids to the subject of…evolution.

Pharyngutopia » « History doesn’t burn easily

Comments

  3. vairitas says

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!
    i could just tell every one how old you are, but it’s your birthday, so i’ll be nice.

  4. says

    PZ–

    you may have blacked out your age in the post, but on the scienceblogs.com home page the fancy blackout graphic doesn’t show up, so you’re announcing it loud and clear..

    just so you know.

  7. Ian says

    Hey, it’s my Birthday too! Woohoo! I feel cool, sharing a b-day with you. Have a great day!

  11. Rheinhard says

    Herzliche Glückwünsch zum Geburtstag!

    Now, if any of the biological sciences geniuses around here have some time and would care to chime in on this thread on Oliver Willis’ site, wherein I (being trained in physics and not so well versed in biology and genetics) attempt to lay a serious beatdown on some ass-head wingnuts spouting the “we’ll be harvesting babies for stem cell research” meme, it would be much appreciated.

  12. says

    SURELY you meant you were going to lecture high school students on Intelligent Design.

    Happy Birthday,
    Mixter

  16. says

    Happy Birthday, and may you have many more. We need you around to keep debunking those enemies of science. Best, and keep on blogging.

  17. says

    Happy birthday, PZ.

    Oh, and just so you know, my 3-year-old daughter asked me the other day if dinosaurs and dogs were related, because “their bones look the same.”

    She already knows we’re related to monkeys.

    There’s always hope. ;)

  18. says

    What an excellent birthday gift you are giving to others! Science needs to do a LOT more outreach to young minds if we are ever going to steer the course of this ship away from pseudoscience. Your high school lectureship is exactly what needs to be done. I envy you and I admire you!

  20. says

    Many happy returns, PZ!

    GrrlScientist – I got that same card about twenty years ago, with the cute animal cartoons. Is it still around?! …looks… found

    How about that?

  21. says

    If Hobbits give gifts to others on their own birthday, why shouldn’t you go out and give the gift of critical thinking?

    Happy birthday and have fun.

  23. Strange Forces says

    Happy Birthday, sir. Thanks for the good work so far, and as William Goldman said, On To The Next.

  24. says

    I cheated and looked up your real age on the main page too. You’re 6 months younger than me. (I figured out the general time scale from your baby photo. Your parents are dressed a lot like mine were at that stage in my life!)

    So — happy birthday, kid!

  25. says

    Oh, now everyone’s looking at the main page. Naughty. It’s not about age–it’s about wisdom! Right? Happy Birthday, PZ–you’re just a little ahead of me!

  26. says

    Happy b-day, PZ! It was good talking to you and Alaric last night. We’ll have to convince Robin to hold a DL in Morris one of these days so you can have something other than a soft drink. Drunk scientists are fun.

  28. says

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY PZ!

    gee, i feel like an elder. i was born 2 months after MIT’s Whirlwind computer was featured in American Scientist.

    so, did you get any doubters in your HS audience?

  31. says

    You say it’s your birthday —
    Well it’s my birthday too, yeah…
    Happy birthday to you.

    Obviously March 9 is a marvelous to have been born!

    My own birthday post is here. More Dante, less Darwin.

    Cheers!

  32. says

    Happy Birthday, PZ.

    Age doesn’t matter. What matters is that we live our lives as well as possible.

    Viewing you from outside, and from a distance, it still looks to me like yours is a life well-lived.

    By the way, I got a sneak peek at the birthday card Carl Buell painted for you. Will we get to see it posted here?

  37. says

    Paul wrote:

    “Here it is, my 49th birthday, and it’s spring break.”

    Since life begins at conception ;-) I prefer to celebrate my conception day: June 6, 1943.
    My father was in the Marine Corps in Camp Lejeune NC and he got a weekend pass and a plane ride to New York. He and my mother spent Saturday June 5 and Sunday June 6 at the Bear Mountain Inn, upstate New York.
    By November he was fighting on Roi-Namur in the Kwajalein atoll and then on Tarawa, Saipan and Iwo Jima in a war that was truly worth fighting. He didn’t get to see me until I was almost 2 years old.
    And young people think they have it tough today.
    Semper Fi, Marine…

  38. Molly says

    Happy birthday and many happy returns!

    We would be honored to have you lecture on evolution at the Jedi Temple Academy (don’t blame me; my son named it) any time.

  40. Mike says

    Another March 9 birthday here. Turning 50. I’m taking comfort in math , paleontology and the contingency of evolution. From the math, 50 is no significant number. Less interesting than, say, 47 (prime), 48 (lots of factors) or 49 (a prime square). From paleontology and the contingency of evolution knowing that some early tetrapods had 8 or 7 fingers makes 50 seem less significant and more a mere artifact of the contingent fact of evolution that we have 5. Considering our lifespans, if we’d had 7 fingers, 49 would surely have been seen as a very significant age.

    Of course, then we’d write it as 100. I hope that doesn’t make PZ feel any older.

  48. eyelessgame says

    hippo birdie two ewes
    hippo birdie two ewes
    hippo birdie deer pharyngula
    hippo birdie two ewes

  54. LM Wanderer says

    Happy birthday! I’m older by a few years and I can attest that it just gets better. Thanks for writing the most interesting blog on the net.

    LM Wanderer

  58. ColinB says

    Happy Birthday PZ!

    Although, since you noted here just how murky the definition of life beginning is, it really only can be considered the day you were born, not the beginning of your life, which, in some ways, appears to have happened way back when, a few billion years ago.

    Gives new meaning to “Old as the hills”, eh?

    Still, we can still celebrate the beginning of your development towards being the PZ Meyers that we all respect and cherish.

    Happy Birthday!

  63. paul says

    49 is what comes up in View Source.
    Also, when I search on 49, I can see behind the black box.

    So, the question is, did you know this would happen (i.e., that “49” would easily be found)? If so, is it accurate. Certainly seems truthy, maybe even plausible.

    As Paul Simon once sang, “Man, you’re old.”

    I guess if I had to bet on a single year, I’d bet on 1957, which for a long time, perhaps still, was the year of the most births in the US. And that’s not counting HI or AK!

  64. Mike says

    “Happy Bday, PZ. I’ll see if I can get you Behe’s head on a silver platter as a gift.”

    Put it on a stick and its a ready-made maraca.

  67. kathy a says

    delurking to say: thanks for a terrific blog. i’m only a sometimes visitor, and not a scientist, but never disappointed. and,

    1957 was an excellent year to be born! not that i remember it personally; i’m a few months younger than you, and my real memories begin around 1960. i’m sure you remember where you were when JFK was shot; remember looking at the moon when humans first went there; early heart transplants; and ideas like gas conservation, and recycling, and protection of species and land becoming mainstream ideas.

    science has moved so far in so many areas, and yet its impact on political and public life has become so marginalized. yours is a unique voice, and i wish you many years of raising hell [using, of all things, facts].

  68. Patrick says

    1983 wasn’t a bad year to be born either. I was born the same day Pioneer 10 left the solar system; there just wasn’t enough room for the two of us.

  70. wamba says

    Happy birthday!

    Debate over intelligent design comes to TU

    …
    Scientist Mark Lamontia introduces alternative to evolution to nearly 100 audience members; uses popular culture references to clarify common misconceptions of theory
    …
    A mechanical engineer by trade, Lamontia drew on his scientific background to demonstrate how life is the product of some intentional craft or design and not of evolution.
    …
    Lamontia did not want listeners to confuse his presentation with a scientific justification for the existence of a God.
    .
    “I’m not going to say anything about religion in the whole talk,” he said.
    …
    For example, he explained the cell is such a complex combination of proteins that it is neither a byproduct of the laws of physics, nor a random combination of amino acid sequences. He used such appeals to popular culture as photos of Legos, sound clips from a Bob Newhart comedy, and footage from the Super Bowl to support his argument.
    …

  71. wamba says

    Wayne Adkins talks straight in American Chronicle

    …
    In the end, they may do more harm to the creationist position than good. What they offer as scientific proof does not even pass muster as science let alone definitive proof. In the past religious leaders gave people inaccurate answers about our world out of ignorance. That is forgivable. Now they are trying to feed people inaccurate answers about our world using willful deceit under the guise of science. That is not as forgivable.
    .
    Intelligent design proponents have conceded the superiority of the scientific method to faith. They know that an assertion based on scientific research is more credible than an assertion based on faith. So they have endeavored to promote their creationist beliefs as scientific. But the scientific method is a tool for finding answers to phenomena. What they have done is search for phenomena for which we don’t yet know the answers and claim that God did it. Of course they won’t say God did it because they want to sound scientific. Casey Luskin, a frequent spokesman for the Discovery Institute authored an article on pastor.com titled ‘Intelligent Design: Giving Creation Back to God”. That’s what this movement is all about. Apparently they have concluded that they can’t do that with old fashioned faith. It’s just not as convincing as science.

  72. Dave Puskala says

    Happy Birthday PZ! It was nice to talk with you and your son last night at DL.

  73. wamba says

    Happy Bday, PZ. I’ll see if I can get you Behe’s head on a silver platter as a gift.

    You could start with another of those papers on the origin of the immune system that Behe says don’t exist:
    An ancient evolutionary origin of the Rag1/2 gene locus
    Sebastian D. Fugmann, Cynthia Messier, Laura A. Novack, R. Andrew Cameron, and Jonathan P. Rast,
    PNAS | March 7, 2006 | vol. 103 | no. 10 | 3728-3733

  74. NatureSelectedMe says

    49 years ain’t so bad. I don’t think it sounds as bad as:

    * 1,546,300,800 seconds or
    * 25,771,680 minutes or
    * 429,528 hours or
    * 2,556 weeks or
    * 17,897 days

  75. Pete K says

    Go PZ!, and happy birthday!

    “Teach ’em nothing but facts, sir!”

    And erm, what is that in “zebra-fish years”?

  78. says

    The Happiest of Birthdays to a wonderful person; may a hundred or so just as happy follow it!

    (I rode in on the coat-tails of Rexroth’s daughter if you’re curious…)

    alan

  80. Tiax says

    You’re one year older
    One year wiser
    Rock-n-Roll Star, King,
    Czar, and a Kaiser
    A room full of friends
    A mouth full of cake
    Every present is for you
    and it feels pretty great
    You’re the man of the hour
    The V-I-P
    You get the first slice
    of the P-I-E
    but first blow out the candles
    and make a wish,
    Put a smile on,
    Cause it’s your birthday, bitch!
    -Hesh’s Birthday Song, by MC Chris

  83. says

    If it makes you feel better PZ, you are roughly 74 Venusian Days old, me I’m 75.13 Venusian days old. (Oh yes, and Happy Birthday and Hertzliche Glueckwunsch)

  85. Apikoros says

    Happy birthday, PZ!

    Since you and my brother share a birthday, you and he must have identical personalities and aptitudes. Are you really good at making noises with your armpits?

  87. Madhu says

    PZ,

    You remind me of a poem I read in college, by the Daghestani (formerly soviet) poet Rasul Gamzatov:

    “Zest for life, the quest for truth
    Are a sign, they say, of youth.
    Holy wrath is wont to cool
    Shortly after leaving school.
    Both the wish and will to fight
    Vanish almost overnight.
    On life’s road, they say, you’ll tire.
    Lose all interest, retire
    At a solemn, stately pace.
    Blind to honour and disgrace,
    Equal courtesies you’ll show
    To a friend and to a foe…
    If this prophecy be true,
    There’s but one escape for you:
    Choose a clifftop, say: “Goodbye!”
    Take a running jump – and die!”

    So, may that holy wrath of yours never cool down, Prof. Myers!

    Happy Birthday!!

  91. sphex says

    De-lurking to wish you a Happy Happy Birthday, and to tell you how much I envy those high school kids. Thank you for this blog… it is a very bright candle in the dark.

  93. says

    In honor of this occasion, I’m telling lies about you at my blog.

    Many happy returns, mazel floss, and may the wind be at your back as you continue to slide your way towards senescence.

  98. Dawn says

    I’ll add my birthday wishes to the throngs, and thank you for your blogging. May you blog for many more years.

  100. michiel says

    Happy birthday from the Netherlands Mr. Myers.
    So far, your blog has been an insight to me on the ongoing state of ID vs Evolution. Keep up the great work!

  104. the amazing kim says

    haaaaaaaaappeeeee birthdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay peeeeeeeeeeeeee zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedd!
    and a happy new year.

  107. Louis says

    Happy birthday PZ. Thanks for all your great work. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!

    Louis

  112. says

    I waited a day to say Happy Birthday as a matter of religious obligation. I’m a devout Procrastinarian.

    If anyone deserves a Carl Buell-illustrated birthday card, it’s you. Rock on!

    Ron