This is The Mended Drum, the thread for off-topic conversations on Pharyngula. Talk about whatever you want.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
This is The Mended Drum, the thread for off-topic conversations on Pharyngula. Talk about whatever you want.
I love Eugene — lovely place, great school, good people — and I’m flying back there, leaving tomorrow and staying for the weekend, for a science conference and to meet with old friends. It’s got all the best stuff: copacetic venue, interesting subjects (zebrafish!), nostalgia, wonderful people (the zebrafish community is exemplary that way), and best of all, I don’t have to work! I’m chairing one of the sessions, apparently, but otherwise I have no obligations other than to learn and enjoy myself.
It’s perfection.
Tim Hunt was chastised by his hosts at the Korean meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists, and he replied with a slightly better apology.
The federation asked for an apology. And got one almost immediately. Hunt wrote that he regretted his “stupid and ill-judged remarks.” He added: “I am mortified to have upset my hosts, which was the very last thing I intended. I also fully accept that the sentiments as interpreted have no place in modern science and deeply apologize to all those good friends who fear I have undermined their efforts to put these stereotypes behind us.”
Nope. Not a thing. No religion here, everyone. Come to Hawkins, Texas and enjoy yourself a great big secular gay orgy, ain’t nothin’ about church here.
Ophelia posted this bad cartoon.
The cartoonist might want to consider reading Nature magazine today.
I’ve been considering all the suggestions in the commenting changes thread. One thing that is obvious: We have a problem, Houston.
But it is also true that I feel a hesitation to post because I will be considered an outsider and not worthy of acknowledgement or response.
Broken Things
Hi – another extremely-long-time lurker, very infrequent commenter here. I don’t have any solutions, but reading this comment thread made one problem very obvious: when people ask for more charity, less hostility and knee-jerk dismissiveness, several regular commenters respond as if they’d been told to stop saying fuck.
amrie
I’m another very, very longtime lurker who has commented only a few times. I almost always agree with PZ and the majority of usual commenters, but I’m still really afraid to comment here and be ripped to shreds by the very people I admire so much. I commented the other day one minor criticism of something PZ said, and suddenly I’m “ranting” and “slamming” and being condescended to about whether I read the OP. I’m afraid to go back and see what other responses I got. I love reading this blog, but it’s true that it’s not welcoming to people who aren’t regular commenters.
Dingo Abbie
Have you ever wondered How to Confuse an Atheist? Apparently, theists do, and they even think they have a surefire recipe for doing it. I started reading this expecting a Big Daddy style gotcha that wouldn’t leave any atheists even slightly disturbed (except that eye rolling that hard can make you dizzy), and I was not disappointed.
Let’s take a look at the six steps to confuse an atheist. I’m going to stop at three because that’s enough to see that it’s going nowhere, but I’ll leave the last half as an amusing exercise for the reader.
I had an uncle once who doted on his nephews and nieces. He was a hard-drinking, ex-Army MP, ex-Merchant Marine veteran with a lazy approach to life. He’d take us kids out on weekends to buy comic books, and then fall asleep on the couch while we stayed up late rotting our brains with said comic books and late night creature features. He was also a confirmed bachelor almost his entire life. I had a teacher in junior high who was the same age he was, was always asking about him, and as it turned out, had once asked him to marry her, and he turned her down.
Was he gay? I don’t know, and don’t really care. He was my uncle, and his sex life was none of my business (and he didn’t make it mine). I do know that late in life he settled down with a woman and seemed to be happy. Even that isn’t contraindicative, because human lives and relationships are complicated.
I mention this because the press coverage of Lindsey Graham drives me nuts. Once again, here’s another piece speculating on whether he’s gay, and also implying that liberals are mocking him for being gay.
No, there isn’t. John Oliver explains why.
I am not a fan of Brendan O’Neill. I think he’s a libertarian ass and under all the pretense, an old-fashioned conservative. He has, of course, decided that Tim Hunt is being persecuted.
The Illiberal Persecution of Tim Hunt
An old guys tells a bad joke and academia descends into a frenzy
