David Menton — pwned!

David Menton, one of the ‘authorities’ at Answers in Genesis, has scribbled up another mendacious collection of nonsense about tetrapod evolution. Alas, poor Menton — he caught the attention of Martin Brazeau, a real scholar and researcher in sarcopterygian and tetrapod evolution, who did what creationists dread: he actually checked on the facts behind Menton’s claims. Would you be surprised to learn that there are not only dishonest quote mines that twist the author’s meaning, but that he is caught making up facts about the fossil? Brazeau even contacted Ted Daeschler, one of the authors of the Tiktaalik work, to check on some of those assertions … and there’s no way around it. David Menton is a liar.

It’s hilarious. Brazeau also takes care to document some of the real facts about transitional tetrapods — well worth reading even if you don’t care for the spice of schadenfreude.

I thought I’d never vote for a vampire, but…

So, in the last election, we Minnesotans briefly enjoyed the company of a vampire running for governor. Unfortunately, Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey was arrested before the election and we missed out on the potentially amusing spectacle.

Somehow, though, he is now free (damn those cunning vampires!), and is planning to run for president. As a most interesting and admittedly tempting part of his campaign platform, he is promising to impale GW Bush if elected.

He’s crazy, I wouldn’t have given him a chance, but dang if he didn’t come up with a vote-getting idea. They’re cunning, those vampires, they’ve had centuries to think up these plans. If he tossed Cheney in as a bonus, he might just sweep the election.

I’m a baaaaaad man…

…and some people think I have a posse. I guess it’s my fault the Creation “Science” Fair had reduced participation, and Greg Laden and I can share responsibility for them hiding away their photos.

Someone asked about the reason for the pictures coming down, so I looked again and found your question. I think there were in the mid 30’s number of exhibits this year, down from the 50’s last year. Last year P.Z.Myers had blasted creation as usual and our fair in particular. A small group of young adults, I cannot say if they were inspired or incited by him, tried to steal one of the exhibits and ran into a bookstore where they were trapped and eventually gave it back.

Creationists, fear me.

I would not encourage anyone to steal exhibits from the fair — take photos, of course, and document the silliness, but I think seeing the lunacy exposed is a good thing for us.

Oh. My. Gog. Gospel mimes?

Here, you can have nightmares too. I could hardly believe this topic that came up in the comments: gospel mimes. I thought it had to be some cynical joke, that no one would combine those two things…but it’s real. There are plenty of examples on YouTube, and jpf dug up a list:

I know. My jaw hit the floor, just like yours. If Koran Bratz exist, to name two random and normally unlinked horrors, please don’t tell me.

NSFW? NSFP!

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I had a premonition that this would happen: that when I wrote about The Strange Case of the Woman with a Breast on her Foot someone would suggest that I should have put a “Not Safe For Work” warning on it, even ironically, perhaps. It’s such a common thing, that we voluntarily self-censor; I’ve done it a few times myself, and have felt weird about it. Why should we be at all concerned about linking to a website that might have a picture of a bare breast (or even stranger, a nipple on a foot)? It’s not as if it should be regarded as hideous or offensive, and it’s a bit creepy that we so willingly denigrate the appearance of the human body.

At the same time, would anyone regard that ghastly video in the Rivers of blood post to be “not safe for work”? Probably not. We get all hypersensitive about a little healthy exposed flesh, but animals getting their throats cut? Nah, you aren’t going to get fired for seeing that.

Fortunately, Susie Bright has an excellent post on this very subject. Go ahead and follow that link. I promise, there are no eviscerated animals, horrific traffic accidents, corpses, videos from Iraq, or photos of factories belching toxins into the atmosphere at that site. It might not be safe for prudes to read, but there’s nothing to offend people with healthier attitudes. And it’s a good message: don’t be embarrassed by normal, healthy, positive images of people.

Anti-vaccination foolishness in Minnesota

I got a request to spread the word around Minnesota—the anti-vaxers are gearing up again to push a silly bill in the Minnesota congress. I’ve put the letter below. If any of these people are your representatives, contact them and tell them they are being very, very silly.

There’s supposed to be a hearing next week on a bill that would limit the use of vaccines containing thimerosal, because of the belief that they may cause autism. This is the third year that this bill has been presented, and it keeps failing, but they keep bringing it back up, even though it’s clearer now than ever that there is no connection between the two – there’s been no more than trace amounts of thimerosal in childhood vaccines made since 2001, and more autism than ever in kids too young to have been exposed to it. This isn’t just bad science: it’s the Legislature telling parents they can’t trust their pediatricians, and giving credence to the quacks who want to treat autistic kids with chelation, homeopathy, hyperbaric oxygen, high-dose vitamin supplements, and all manner of other dubious remedies.

Perhaps you would be willing to spread the word that the committee members who will be voting on this bill (Senate File 1780) need to hear the scientific viewpoint? Especially the ones who are co-sponsors of the bill – including John Marty, committee chair, who just went down about four hundred notches in my estimation. I’ll append a couple of links for background and the committee list. I imagine you have a lot of MN readers who may be constituents of the committee members.

Thanks!

Lisa Randall

(an amateur immunization advocate who has experienced the lunacy first-hand)

Background and statements by the American Academy of Pediatrics

Bill text

Committee (co-authors’ names are in bold):

Chair: John Marty* (DFL-54)
Roseville
651-296-5645

Vice Chair: Patricia Torres Ray* (DFL-62)
Minneapolis
651-296-4274

Paul E. Koering (R-12)
Fort Ripley
651-296-4875

Linda Berglin (DFL-61)
Minneapolis
651-296-4261

John P. Doll (DFL-40)
Burnsville
651-296-5975

Sharon L. Erickson Ropes* [RN] (DFL-31)
Winona
651-296-5649

Michelle L. Fischbach (R-14)
Paynesville
651-296-2084

David W. Hann (R-42)
Eden Prairie
651-296-1749

Linda Higgins (DFL-58)
Minneapolis
651-296-9246

Debbie J. Johnson (R-49)
Ham Lake
651-296-3219

Tony Lourey* (DFL-08)
Kerrick
651-296-0293

Ann Lynch (DFL-30)
Rochester
651-296-4848

Yvonne Prettner Solon (DFL-07)
Duluth
651-296-4188

Betsy L. Wergin* (R-16)
Princeton
651-296-8075

Now on top of my usual creationists, I can thank Lynn Margulis for drawing in the HIV denialists that plague Tara‘s site, and this for the anti-vaxers from Orac‘s. Obviously, I need to put up something about global warming next. I’m going to call this little game Poketroll — collect them all!

The Strange Case of the Woman with a Breast on her Foot

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Stevie C sent along this article on
An unusual presentation of supernumerary breast tissue (just what were you googling for, Stevie?), in which a woman reports an annoying growth on her foot, and when examined, is discovered to have a breast growing there, complete with nipple and fatty tissue (but in this case, no glandular tissue).

It’s in the Dermatology Online Journal, not the Onion.

I hadn’t heard of this before myself, but it’s fascinating. These supernumerary breasts can pop up all over the place, including the face, back, and thigh (and foot, obviously). They can be functionally complete, and can even lactate. The authors report some weak and sometimes contradicted associations with other oddities, but no causal mechanism is known. These cases of autonomous self-organization and recruitment of organs are extremely interesting—it suggests that a breast would be a fairly easy tissue to grow in a dish. I’d love to know what the molecular signal for initiating differentiation—I suspect it’s something simple and common.

Some sick atheist demeans kids!

Members of the Twin Cities Creation Science Association are furious—they’ve ripped down the posted photos from the 2007 Creation “Science” Fair “Because Some Sick Atheist Used Them To Demean Kids”. Before you all jump to any conclusion…I didn’t do it.

It was Greg.

You really have to read the comments on that article. The uncle of one of the kids at the Creation “Science” Fair makes several comments, and the poor man is just nuts—incoherent and condescending at the same time. Ross Olson, a Twin Cities creationist and board member at TCCSA, makes an appearance. It’s like a whole collection of fruitcakes! (oops). I’m a little jealous that our local creationists don’t seem to show up here at all.

Unfortunately, in looking over the article and the comments, I could only find one instance of Greg demeaning kids. It was horribly egregious, though, an offense so great that I’m not surprised the creationists were shocked.

Funny, I don’t remember ANY of the 200 exhibits or so at the Brimhall Fair (see this on Julia’s entry) held earlier in the year just down the street at a Real School addressing creationist ideas. But when the kids enter into a creationist fair, they can’t seem to help themselves from doing some actual science.

Science. It’s like a disease that can infect your children.

That didn’t take long

The demonization of Pete Stark begins. Wouldn’t you know it would be Michelle Malkin (“imprisonment for being brown is OK!”), and it would be in WorldNutDaily (your daily source of raving right wing lunacy), and she’s appalled that he has called someone a “fruitcake” in the past. Why, that’s a homophobic slur! He’s as bad as Ann Coulter!

She’s really reaching. I’ve never heard “fruitcake” used against gays, although I imagine practically every word has been used as an insult against them—I’ve mainly heard it to express one’s opinion of another’s sanity, as in “nutty as a fruitcake”. It’s too bad no one ever told Stark that the godless are never, ever allowed to get angry.

Alas for Malkin, she has short-circuited any attempt to call shame on someone judging another as crazy by titling her article “Pete Stark: Raving Lunatic”.