Try searching for a “magic shop” in Queensland in the Australian white pages. They have a lot of them.
(via Randi)
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Try searching for a “magic shop” in Queensland in the Australian white pages. They have a lot of them.
(via Randi)
Way back in early January, I suggested that we vote for one of the Countess’s horror stories in an online contest. You will be pleased to hear that she won “Best Short Horror Story”!
You may recall that I also suggested that she reward Pharyngula’s participation with a little story of our own, so now her horror story begins — she’ll need to write something for the vicious, bloodthirsty, brutally critical audience here. There’s no hurry, of course, but I’ll let you all know when she comes through for us. Maybe it will be something with a beautiful princess, and a pony, and cephalopods, and ancient bones, and grisly atheists, or something.
Nothing new here, just more of the same. I thought this time I’d insert my reactions into the stream of a fairly typical creationist letter that I received this morning. Really, people: you may think you’re very clever and persuasive, but I hear all of this same stuff every single day, and you’ve never got a new argument.
Thanks for removing all doubt as to what will be taught at U-Morris.[Yes. We will be teaching science, not creationism.] My daughter was considering attending after she graduates next year. [Good for her! She sounds like a smart young woman already]That will not be the case anymore.[I am very sorry to hear that—she clearly needs a good education to correct the indoctrination of her father. But then, any good school she gets into will teach her the same things I would]
For you to take it upon yourself to have people e-mail U of Vermont, protesting the invitation to have Ben Stein speak at commencement, shows a narrow minded disdain for relevant[From Stein? Nixonian hack with no knowledge of science and a failed track record in economics?] opposing [Some opposing views can be wrong because they are stupid, you know] views
in not only science but probably everything else.Everyday. And I mean everyday. Your ‘we come from goo’[Uh-oh. Your true colors as a devotee of the crazy people at Answers in Genesis are showing] stance is loosing[Maybe your daughter can be an English major] ground [Actually, no — evolution is doing very well, is beautifully supported by the evidence, and is getting stronger year by year among people who bother to evaluate the evidence] and you and your ilk[Nice word] are scared to death of continually being proven wrong[Not at all. Easy to refute: prove evolution wrong. Go ahead. I’ll listen. Just don’t regurgitate AiG nonsense at me, OK?]. So you go nuts at these opposing views of creation[Just being an “opposing view” does not make it valid. You really need to learn some critical thinking skills.] and what not. Funny thing is Stein is a nice guy[Stein: “Science leads to killing people”] and probably wouldn’t even talk about that scary creation point of view anyway[Maybe instead he’d talk about his inane and demonstrably wrong views on the economy. Which is scarier?]. You have got to lighten up.[Dude, you’re the one writing a long letter to a stranger protesting that you’re going to dictate which schools your daughter can attend, because you don’t want her exposed to different ideas about evolution.]
Please do not take this personally[Since yours is one of 11 weird harangues I found in my mailbox this morning, I won’t. I just laugh.], since I have never met you or even heard of you[Nor I you. But I have heard this same cookie-cutter, boring creationist spiel a few thousand times.] until I saw Pharyngula. There are lots of people over the years that have been ramming[Really? Ramming? I suppose you could say your math teachers also rammed algebra down your throat.] this impossible Theory of Evolution[Sir, you do not understand the theory of evolution, and you are clearly planning to make sure your children don’t, either. Not only is it possible, it’s been demonstrated time and again] down our throats. But that does not mean its true.[Funny. I have never heard a scientist say evolution is true because we have indoctrinated people into it. That’s more the kind of thing that is true of creationists]
We need to keep open minds and field and teach opposing views and let truth take it where it leads no matter how improbable a direction[I repeat, guy: your whole letter is built on an assertion that you will not allow your daughter to be exposed to ideas you dislike. Why are you creationists always so oblivious?].
Respectfully,[Somehow, I doubt it]
Steve Broten
This is curious: apparently, the DVD of Expelled now comes with a little book of quotes which are supposed to support its thesis. Only they don’t. Somebody ought to scan these in so we could all share the hilarity.
Not me, alas. Not only didn’t I get to see the movie, the makers haven’t even had the courtesy to send me a complimentary copy. Maybe they’re anticipating that I’ll be able to get one in my goody bag at the Oscars.
Feel my pain. Listen to this ignorant young woman lie and lie and lie about evolution: Charles Darwin was a theologian who just guessed and didn’t do any science, there are no transitional fossils, the cell is very complex and therefore could not evolve, yadda yadda yadda. She has been grossly miseducated, and she’s parroting creationist dishonesty with extreme smugness.
There. Now I’ve ruined your morning.
My teaching schedule this semester is a major time-suck; I’m teaching genetics and all of its associated labs (you really don’t want to know how much prep time goes into setting up fly labs), I’m doing some major revision of the content this year, and I’ve got this asymmetric schedule that packs everything into the first half of each week. So I simply have to protest when those evil (Stein was right!) scientists announce a major discovery on a Tuesday, which just happens to be the very worst day of the week for me. They’ve gone and found another important whale transitional fossil, Maiacetus, and I’m just going to have to tell you to go read a bunch of other fine blogs that already have it covered.
(A, B)- Dorudon atrox (5.0 m; 36.5 Ma) based on UM 101222 and 101215 [11] in lateral and dorsal views, respectively. (C, D)- Maiacetus inuus (2.6 m; 47.5 Ma) based on male specimen GSP-UM 3551 in lateral and dorsal views, respectively.
It’s beautiful. It’s clearly adapted for aquatic life, but it has another revealing feature: this specimen was pregnant at death, and the fetus is oriented for a head-first birth, which is not good for birth at sea (the head would pop out, baby would take its first breath, and drown before the tail emerged), so this animal would have had to give birth on land.
But like I said, you’ll have to read Carl Zimmer, Ed Yong, Brian Switek, or Greg Laden this time around for all the details. Or read the paper yourself! It’s freely accessible.
Stein has a little tantrum over outcry against his address at the University of Vermont. It’s not at all notable, except for one little comment.
Stein said he has spoken at many universities, including Columbia, Yale, Stanford, and American University, “and no one has said boo. Somehow at UVM, it has become a big issue.”
I recommend that we make it a big issue at every university where he speaks. The man who said flatly that “science leads you to killing people” should not be honored at any university.
Well, OK, he would fit right in at Liberty University and such places as that. But no real university.
This is Samira Jassam. She is not a nice lady.
She was responsible for sending men out to rape women, so that in their despair and shame she’d be able to recruit them as suicide bombers. She’s a monster. The cowards who would do her bidding and assault innocent women are also creatures of contempt.
This is where a pathologically religious culture can end up: with parasites like this who exploit the fear and hatred to create more fear and hatred.
You’ll have to think about this one. There probably is no teapot.
A nurse on a home visit decided to offer her services as a personal intermediary to a deity and pray for her patient. The patient objected and complained to the health organization — after all, the patient may not like her nasty bronze age god, and may feel put upon that a presumed professional is proposing to waste her time on chanted magic spells. It’s also a matter of courtesy: when I’m teaching, I don’t hector my students on matters outside the course content, like atheism, and when I’m being treated by a nurse or doctor, I expect them to leave irrelevant superstitions out of the examining room.
Anyway, poor suffering Nurse Petrie, martyr of the Baptist faith, is currently under disciplinary review for springing hare-brained mysticism on a patient in her care. Good. I don’t think she should lose her job over one infraction (although apparently she’s done similar things before), but she ought to be disciplined and taught what is appropriate.
But no, that’s not enough for the deranged dingbat Melanie Phillips, who declares that “This is the way society dies“.
I am a Jew; but when my mother was in the last stages of her terminal illness she was cared for by deeply devout Christian nurses who regularly prayed for her. Far from being offended by this, I was touched and comforted by this signal that they cared so much about her.
They cared so much that they bowed their head and babbled to an imaginary being while doing nothing. If someone wants a litany of nonsense recited nearby, sure, go for it…but purveyors of such useless fairy-stroking wastes of time think they have the privilege of pushing it on others, they’ve got another thing coming. And then she plays the Muslim envy card.
Demonstrating ‘a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity’ apparently means that offering Christian solace to anyone at all, even if they don’t belong to another faith, somehow damages ‘equality and diversity’. Would the same action be taken, one wonders, against a Muslim nurse offering to pray for a Muslim patient?
First of all, “Christian solace” is only solace if you share a belief in the virtue of prayer; to rationalists, it’s all humbug and noise and not comforting at all. And secondly, yes, it doesn’t matter what religion the looney person is practicing. If they’re bowing on a prayer mat, ululating, waving burning incense over my head, sacrificing a chicken, clicking magic beads, or hollerin’ for god to come down and smite the devil in me, get them the hell out of my hospital room.
By the way, there is a poll on the odious Phillips’ screed.
Would you object to a nurse offering to pray for you?
Yes 11%
No 89%
Needs fixin’.
For those of you who think atheists are being too touchy, here are two additions.
Put yourself in the position of the patient. You are sick and dependent on this person to help you get better, and she declares that your belief in her god is important. What do you do? There is an element of coercion here that should not be ignored.
If the nurse were sincere in her faith, there’s something very easy she could do. Don’t ask, just go quietly off by herself and pray for the patient. The request is an unnecessary element that is little more than a ploy for attention, a declaration of her piety.
