Wired has funny little poll: 3 rounds of quotations from Collins and Dawkins, and you get to judge who wins each round.
So far, Collins is reeling and staggering, battered badly, and especially in the last round, is fading fast. I don’t think he’s going to pull a Rocky on this one — especially since I’m now sending everyone here to go do a Raging Bull on him.
ERV has put up her account of Dembski’s nightmare evening, in which he got grilled and mocked by the students in the Q&A. It sounds like it was great fun — for everyone else, at least — but this part really irks me.
Finally, the Creationists had had enough. Somebody had to stand up for Jesus.
“Im just so disappointed in OU students and how closed minded they are!!!”
Dembski made it perfectly clear at that point that the attacks against me were no accidental oversight. Dembski used this Creationist as an opportunity to attack the students that were exposing him as a fool: “Well dont be so hard on them. Theyre just sucking up to their professors.“
Way to make excuses for your own failure by belittling the students, jerk. You flopped, Billy, and it was your own fault — you can only succeed when you ship in a church-going claque, and you had a room full of independent-minded, skeptical students, instead.
It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day, so let’s all heave a hearrrty “Arrr” and down a ration of grog.
Also, more significantly, today is the day of the
Freshman Biology Major Mixer!
In case any of our new biology majors at UMM didn’t get the word, but do read the blog, here’s the deal: party at my house, 300 College Avenue, 7pm tonight. Here’s a map, but you hardly need it — we’re right next door to the U.
The biology faculty will be providing the refreshments, we just want you to stop by and meet us all and your fellow budding biologists. It will be fun.
I doubt that I’ll be up to growling like a pirate in the evening, but I’ll have my Jolly Roger flying, and I’ll be sure to have some of my collection of pirate books out on the coffee table if anyone else wants to join in.
But sorry, no grog for you. You’re all under 21! Fizzy drinks and chips and cake instead!
Now the Catholic schools want to ban the HPV vaccine. I simply do not understand that attitude. I can understand wanting to protect your daughter from the entanglements and risks of too-young sex, but this is a vaccine to protect them 1) from a disease 2) transmitted by sex. My eyes tend to focus more on point 1 than on point 2; 1 has greater penalties and none of the joys of 2, and protecting against 1 does not entail that 2 will occur.
Is there something in those communion crackers that shorts out the logic circuits of the brain?
Sometimes, men really suck. Amanda horrifies me with this wife-beating video: a horrible little man browbeats, strikes, and briefly chokes his wife while having their children videotape the whole thing. I guess he felt that she deserved it.
I couldn’t help but noticed that the wretched Y-chromosome-bearing thug was also prominently wearing a bright, sparkly cross around his neck the whole time.
Oh, joy. We’ve got a new crop of persistent Religiots pissing and moaning in the comments. They’re whining that I’m mean, that all the regular commenters are mean, that the fact that some good scientists are also Christian somehow validates Christian belief, that I can’t criticize scientists who are working at more prestigious universities, and that my tactics are bad. I don’t know why they’re here; it’s not as if we’re going to be converted by their inanities, or that they’re going to persuade us to accept any of their claims.
Let’s break it down into simple sentences and ideas.
Just two days ago, I caught Skatje snacking on bacon, and also there on the counter was a bar of chocolate…and I joked to her that she ought to whip up some chocolated-dipped bacon. Who knew that bacon-flavored chocolate actually exists?
I’m afraid it doesn’t sound too tasty to me, and I mentioned it in a “eww, gross” sort of way … maybe some chocolatier somewhere needs to tap into my prescient talents, because I sure wasn’t going to actually try that stuff.
Although his agony still comes through clearly.
I am another one of PZ’s students just introducing myself. I am a biology major. When I am finished with my undergraduate work I hope to attend medical or physician assistant school. I am in neurobiology because I love learning about how the body works. It is part of what attracts me to the medical field.
Oh, no! Neal’s comments haven’t been getting through, so he sent me a friendly email message to let me know.
(By the way, the filters have been acting up in a horrible way lately — about 10% of the comments have been held up for moderation when they shouldn’t, and it’s irritating the heck out of me. I go in and approve broad swathes of arrested comments whenever I can, but it means sometimes your words get held up unnecessarily long.)
Warning: you might find these comments inoffensive if you are a longshoreman or attended Catholic school. Otherwise, watch out. Some of you know Neal by reputation, so you know what to expect.
