I’m awestruck: this review of Dawkins’ The Fascism Delusion is devastating, even while it is somewhat familiar.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m awestruck: this review of Dawkins’ The Fascism Delusion is devastating, even while it is somewhat familiar.
Back when I had an ungodly commute to work and had to get up at 5am to knock back a quart of coffee before staggering out to the bus and train, I’d sometimes flip through the channels on the TV to see what was happening. And at that hour of the morning, what you’d find is quack ads, infomercials, and the televangelists. I confess, some of my favorites were Ken Copeland (an awe-shucks country boy who looked like a few generations of inbreeding and moonshine abuse had shriveled his brain) and Benny Hinn (head-thwacking con man in a shiny white suit) — I’d watch them, awed that anyone was actually gullible enough to believe that crap. I haven’t seen them in years, but now Revere brings back old memories with a video from The Chasers.
The code is interesting: “plant a seed” actually means “give me lots of money now”.
Whenever I spot some old thread suddenly getting a surge of new comments, I can guess what has happened: a creationist or two has come to visit. That’s happening right now on this very short article that mentions the peppered moths; we’re up above 200 comments now, and it seems to have very little to do with moths anymore. Instead, we’ve got a creationist complaining about the absence of transitional species and the Cambrian ‘explosion’, with a little quote-mining of Richard Dawkins. You commenters are taking care of him ably, but there are just a few things I want to mention, and a few questions I want to ask of the creationists.
Shelley had her weird cake article, but it failed to include this bizarre masterpiece.
I can’t quite imagine why a cephalopod would want to do that, when there are so many attractive molluscs in the sea.
I believe I’ve shown this video here before, but it’s pretty, so look at it again.
However, Our Descent into Madness asks whether this is “magical or gross”. You all know the correct answer.
Neither!
It’s beautiful and entirely, gloriously, perfectly NATURAL.
Apparently, they also frequent the professoriate.
I got some email today with lots of constructive suggestions (See? Not all my email is evil!) for how we ought to change the education of biology students — such as by giving them a foundation in the history and philosophy of our science, using creationist arguments as bad examples so the students can see the errors for themselves, etc. — and it was absolutely brilliant, even the parts where he disagreed with some things I’d written before. Best email ever!
Of course, what helped is that I spent my summer “vacation” putting together a new freshman first semester course for biology majors that I’m teaching for the first time right now, and it’s exactly the course he described. It was eerie, like one of my future students had invented a time machine and come back into the past to tell me what to do. A lot of the course content is locked up behind a password-protected firewall, I’m afraid, but just to show you what I’m talking about, I’ll put the course schedule below the fold.
Daniel Cooper knows how to properly evaluate what’s important. He’s George W. Bush’s undersecretary for benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs. We’re in the middle of a bloody, wasteful war, and we’ve got lots of veterans who deserve support and, you know, benefits, so I think Mr Cooper’s job is fairly important.
What does Mr Cooper think is important? He’s made a video for Campus Crusade for Christ in which he plainly spells out where his priorities lie.
Poor Pastor Ted had been fired from the New Life Church, and was trying to get his life together. He put out a plea claiming poverty and soliciting donations to support his new calling, ministering to the poor at a halfway house. Your humble narrator was righteously suspicious.
In the latest turn of events, his former church tut-tuts reprovingly at his unseemly begging for handouts, and tells everyone about his $138,000 severance pay. The halfway house, aghast, says Mr Haggard sure isn’t moving in with them, and there’s no way he’s going to be counseling the needy. What will happen to the wayward minister?
Haggard will not be doing any ministry and instead will be seeking secular employment…
Surely, hijinks will ensue!
Do you know any cell biology? Any biology at all? Then you might want to stop reading now. Here’s something to make any competent biology instructor weep.
