Comments

  1. Louis says

    PZ, you know what your grandmother’s face looks like when she orgasms?

    W….T….F!!!!!oneeleventy111!!!!

    Ok that story has to be told. In fact all Pharyngulites must demand this story from PZ from this point forward. How the hell do you know this?

    Louis

    P.S. From the article:

    I also saw PZ at lunch where he said he knew what his grandmother’s face looked like when she orgasmed, made fun of Utah and Mormons, and laughed heartily at my True Stories About Atheism.

    You can’t make this stuff up.

  2. scribe999 says

    “It has tentacles, an elephant and a great deal of purple…”

    These are a few of my favorite things.

  3. Qwerty says

    Sure, it wasn’t a date. You’re just lucky she mentioned the Trophy Wife (TM) in her post as that will probably get you off the proverbial hook.

  4. ashleyfmiller says

    Holy shit website hits.

    His grandmother was apparently very excited that he was marrying someone she approved of.

  5. Randomfactor says

    I met PZ at the Orange County thing but didn’t want to spring for the $50 for dinner.

    He did sign my octopus, though. It’s for a friend.

  6. PZ Myers says

    It isn’t what you think. My grandmother was something of a racist who warned me when I went off to college that I was not to date any black girls. When I some years later broke the news to her that I was engaged to a girl with the good Norwegian name of Gjerness who was practically purebred Scandinavian through and through, she gave me such a look of pure joy that I almost felt embarrassed.

  7. Randomfactor says

    Shucks, I thought it was surely something about manner-of-death and the limits of embalming technique…

  8. Louis says

    Awwwww PZ, that’s a very well behaved story. Couldn’t you at least have made something really prurient up for fun?

    Louis

  9. Newfie says

    here you go, Louis

    Grandfather put the wrong ‘home movie’ in the 8mm projector that one time.

  10. inkling says

    yeah, I mean what could possible be untoward about an evening involving “red hair”, the “shroud of Turin”, “squid”, “blasphemy”, “onanism”, “tentacles” an “uncanny valley”?

  11. BlueEyedVideot says

    Does “”It has tentacles, an elephant and a great deal of purple…” mean your book is finally ready? When is the big date? I’ve an annoying hole on my “favorites” bookshelf right next to a Dawkins that I’ve been trying to fill for some time…

  12. Feynmaniac, Chimerical Toad says

    Well, now that the grandmother mystery is solved, how about this one:

    I never quite figured out what he was vaguely irritated with Michael Shermer for.

    My guess: because Shermer is a libertarian. In fact, he wrote:

    People have a hard time accepting free market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer — a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer — a Government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

  14. Louis says

    Newfie,

    Route one. You get a D-, must try harder.

    Curiously that’s what gramma was saying to grampa just after little PZ learned what he learned. At least in my universe.

    Louis

  15. Sili, The Unknown Virgin says

    I’m not sure how much to talk about because apparently some jerkface stole something about the zebrafish experiments from PZ’s blog and published it

    Jesus Fuckin’ Christ.

    That’s downright Christian of him/her.

  16. Sili, The Unknown Virgin says

    Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer — a Government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

    Jesus more Fuckin’ Christ?!

    That’s an argument?

    Even I can shoot holes in that.

    The reality of evolution does not make artificial selection and genetic engineering impossible.

    Have you fucking seen the state of Nature in the rough?! That is not something to strive for. An is is not an ought.

    Wanker.

    Also: PeeZed, Poopyhead.

  17. opaltiger says

    I can understand ambivalence, but what could you possibly have against Linux?

  18. 'Tis Himself, OM says

    Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer — a Government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

    Whatever else Michael Shermer knows, the role of regulation in economics isn’t one of them.

  19. Brownian, OM says

    Jesus more Fuckin’ Christ?!
    That’s an argument?

    It’s not. Unfortunately, Shermer frequently makes similar claims; that because non-government groups can self-regulate on occasion that government regulation is superfluous.

    Unfortunately, this makes no sense. Of course sometimes people won’t kill other people, even if there’re no proscriptions against it. Nonetheless, the fact that most cultures have some sort of rule against murder suggests that the non-compliers were prevalent enough for everybody to do something about it.

    Similarly, no one is arguing that no deli would ever serve appropriately stored meats; we invented food inspectors to deal with those who didn’t. Because many of them didn’t, no matter how many examples of the opposite he can provide.

    I quite like Shermer, but he really does say the dumbest things about economics, while at the same time being very illuminating. He had a recent article in Discover or Scientific American: Mind about self-regulation among pirates. See, they weren’t always cut-throat; just cut-throat often enough to scare everyone else into offering them little or no resistance. How is that an argument to convince us to live without government again? Because pirates didn’t kill as many people as they bragged they did?

  20. Mattir says

    Oh please let the part about your
    grandmother be an inference and not first hand observation. Please.

  21. Haruhiist says

    I’m deeply offended that you do not approve of my god, linux, and that you worship a false god! Can you not see Mac can never save you from proprietary hell? :D

    but seriously, the grandmother thing freaked me out at first..

  22. Hypatia's Daughter says

    PZed – hmmmmph! I is offended! That is how it is pronounced by all who speak proper(i.e. Canadjen) English. I have an outstanding offer to teach Americans how to speak & spell English, should the day come when it is made the official language of the USA.
    About that Libertarian economics thing. For a free market economy to function properly, there has to be 4 basic principles in place. Complete mobility of land, labour (see, that’s how it is spelled) and capital; and complete information. Needless to say, these things don’t always exists (labour is rarely allowed to move freely, especially across national borders, or between professions); and many of these principles entail costs that are barriers to efficiency. One cannot, for example know all the prices for a good in all the places it is available, so one stops price checking at some point and settles to buy even at a potentially higher cost.
    Shermer is building a strawman when he says that people want a government run market because they believe the economy needs a designer. Most people want the government to allay the negative aspects of a free economy (like unemployed people could starve while job-hunting); not run the economy. Most of those pinko socialist countries, like Sweden & Canada don’t have government run economies – just programs to alleviate the problems a free market can cause.

  23. NervousAboutAngels says

    HATES linux? I can see ‘is uninterested in using linux’, but Hates linux? How has it come to this?!

  25. PZ Myers says

    Ashley has the story a little wrong. I don’t mind either peezee or peezed. What I pointed out was a peculiarity: Brits tend to ask me what pronounciation I prefer, and then use that. Australians, I’ve noticed, tend to charge in and insist that it’s peezed.

    I don’t mind either way. I was just pointing out that Aussies are ruder (in their brash and pleasant way) than those European anglophones.

  26. Susan Silberstein says

    I’m a witness who was sitting next to PZ when he related the story about his grandmother. The person who did not have a dinner date with him was sitting directly across the table from us. However, having appropriated the chair next to him for the main part of the conference (ignoring the sign that said the table was reserved for speakers and VIPs) I can report that he did not say anything that I would not repeat to my mother.

    I passed on your message, PZ.

  27. Janet Holmes says

    Well I’m Australian and it’s always Peezee for me. I guess I’ve listened to too many interviews etc where that’s how PZ was introduced. Peezee sort of seems like his name. I never say zee any other time though.

    The book jacket sounds perfect to me, purple is my favourite colour.

  28. hyoid says

    Errrr is “signing the octopus” like helping the deaf, or is it more like “lifting the baggage”?

    Eternal Student

  29. nigelTheBold says

    Against Linux? I just died inside a little.

    Against BSD, vi, or C++, I can understand. But Linux? (Just joshin’ about those other religions.)

  30. Usagichan says

    nigel (#29)

    Against BSD, vi, or C++, I can understand.

    I can see BSD, but surely all followers of the Unixamic religions revere vi equally?

    And to mention c++ in the same breath… you’ll be providing apologetics for php and other weakly typed offerings next – its a slippery slope I tell you, a slippery slope…

  31. Raze says

    Echoing the incredulity at being against Linux. Especially considering OS X is heavily grounded in the *nix area of OSs.

  32. nigelTheBold says

    I can see BSD, but surely all followers of the Unixamic religions revere vi equally?

    I’m pretty sure that’s true.

    I’m an EMACS guy, myself. :)

  33. Cosmic Teapot says

    you’ll be providing apologetics for php and other weakly typed offerings next

    Thumbing your nose at PHP on a PHP powered blog.

    Oh the irony.

    I’m an EMACS guy, myself. :)

    Splitter!

  38. ashleyfmiller says

    @Mobius that’s an awesome pic :) You both look like you’re getting away with something.

  39. Hypatia's Daughter says

    #37 Gary Radice

    Trophy Wife must spend a lot of time just shaking her head.

    I hear rumors that she is being canonized and may be called “St. Trophy Wife” in the near future.
    Q: What is worse than being left home alone while your husband travels the world and flirts with sweet young atheists?
    A: Having him home 24/7 while writing a book……