Francis Collins, doofus for the Lord

I just watched the Francis Collins/Charlie Rose interview (it starts at about 35 minutes on that clip), and although I struggled manfully to appreciate the fellow’s accomplishments and status in science, I failed. All I could see is that he was illogical, irrational, and downright goofy—all the symptoms of a severe affliction with a bad case of religion. That video ought to be a warning to scientists: even a prestigious scientist can suffer Christian mind-rot.

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Just another Christian ranter on the fringe

He only has a few radio and television programs, his own university, tens of millions of dollars to throw at his political causes, and a few million voters in his pocket, so Jerry Falwell* is just a marginal nut, right? We can just ignore him when he says things like this:

It is apparent, in light of the rebirth of the State of Israel, that the present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ.

Those rapture freaks who are cheering on the bloodshed in the Middle East certainly don’t have any real clout…at least, not as much as us influential atheists, I’m sure.

(via DefCon)

*Grade A Demented Fuckwit.

A simple story gets complicated

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People, scientists included, are always looking for simple, comprehensible explanations for complex phenomena. It’s so satisfying to be able to easily explain something in a sound bite, and sound bites are so much more easily accepted by an audience than some elaborate, difficult collection of details. For example, we often hear homosexual behavior reduced to being a “choice,” the product of a “gay gene,” a “sin,” or something similarly absolute and irreducible…suggesting that it is part of a diverse spectrum of sexual behaviors with multiple causes and that different individuals are different in their behaviors is almost certainly the more accurate description, but that doesn’t satisfy our need for straight, simple, linear causal mechanisms. This is true of most animal behavior, I think—you just can’t crunch it down to one single agent that drives much of anything.

I thought there was one excellent counter-example, though, one that suggested at least some complex behaviors might be reducible to a discrete source: the mating behavior of Microtus voles. It was such a simple, clean story; new results suggest that it was too clean, and that there’s much more to the behavior than was thought.

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The Rapture Index just went up a point…

…because Pam Spaulding at Pandagon had a kind word to say about James Lileks. Not his Bleat or Screed blog, fortunately, or for his regular column in the Strib which I find tediously twee, but for his masterful book, Interior Desecrations. You have to have lived through the 1970s to be able to understand how tacky things got for a while there—someday I’m going to have to dig up that old photo of myself in a polyester paisley print shirt and bell bottoms just to put the younger generation of readers here into shock.

While I’m in a “what were they thinking?” mood, I’ll mention one shock we had in this otherwise nice 1950s era house we own. The upstairs is carpeted bright red…no, scarlet, a flaming crimson color, which was discombobulating enough. In addition, though, one of the upstairs bedrooms was wallpapered in bright ♣ green shamrocks ♣ .

It was one of the selling points, actually. I figured if we ever had trouble making the mortgage payments, I already had the decor to open a bordello for leprechauns.

‘Ware the Minneapolis police, fellow weirdos

The Minneapolis police are getting a little too serious—they’ve started arresting zombies (those are some really good mugshots.) I think the fact that there was a zombie dance party at the mall might have tipped them off that there isn’t a real threat here.

The reason they were arrested is ridiculous.

Harteau also said police were on high alert because they’d gotten a bulletin about men who wear clown makeup while attacking and robbing people in other states.

What’s the matter with law enforcement nowadays? They can’t even tell clowns from zombies. Here’s a hint:

i-367d9d62c3d6cc3db5fc4f2bfee5c364-zombie.jpg

i-166fbcf29107e22e45c8d3026ba1fa1d-clown.jpg

What are they going to do when the mad scientists invade Minneapolis next week—run around and start locking up dentists and undertakers?

Shameless self-promotion

As Shelley says, if we aim to make this place the place for the biggest conversation about science, we can’t be shy. Scienceblogs has cracked the Technorati Top 100, and we’re aiming higher, so it would be nice to get more links to that page. Pharyngula isn’t on the Top 100, but I figure all the squid pics will eventually allow me to destroy Cute Overload (oh, wait, nooooo…that’s another link contributing to the dominion of cute furry immature felines!).

Technorati also keeps a list of the Top 100 Favorited Blogs, so you can help us out there, too, by adding Pharyngula to your Technorati Favorites or
adding Scienceblogs to your Technorati Favorites, if you happen to have a technorati account.

As a special bonus, I’ll be programming my undead cyborg squid-human hybrids to avoid eating the brains of anyone with Pharyngula in their technorati favorites.