It’s God. I mean, Ken Ham, who thinks he is god.
Oh look. Biden has appointed a transgender woman to a position where she can advise godly men. This is catastrophic to the Christian world view.
Once again, he demonstrates that his peculiar interpretation of the Bible is the one true Christianity.
OH NOES. Biden is planning to sacrifice children on the altar of secular humanism! Darn these Moloch worshippers worming their way into high office.
Wait, I thought he was a Catholic…
I’m going to put off the celebratory imbibery a bit longer today so that I can talk about development of the nervous system.
I’ll be stone cold sober, but I might still be a little giddy. I’ll be discussing “Evolving specialization of the arthropod nervous system”, published in PNAS in 2012, sort of — there’s lots of good stuff in there, but I might dwell on neurectoderm formation a bit longer than Jarvis, Bruce, and Patel. Because it’s cool.
Last call: if you want join me over Zoom, send me an email, maybe I’ll send you a zoom link. Otherwise, feel free to join the YouTube chat!
He gave a farewell speech in which he blamed all the deaths on his watch on China, declared that his administration had given Biden a good foundation (he’s going to claim credit for any good that emerges in the next few years), threatened to be back “in some form” in the future, and then boarded a helicopter and flew away as Fox News played YMCA (???).
Trump leaves the White House pic.twitter.com/fed7XB4I99
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 20, 2021
LET THE REJOICING BEGIN! No, not you, Joe. Get to work.
By the way, while you might want to sigh with relief that you made it through the last four miserable years, remember that 400,000 didn’t. They weren’t killed by China, either — they were murdered by Republican incompetence. Destroy that party. That’s your new mission.
If you must, here’s a bit of his speech, and that surreal send off to the tune of YMCA.
"We will back in some form … have a good life," says Trump, befor he's serenaded off the stage one last time as president by the thumping beat of "YMCA" pic.twitter.com/daAN2J23wO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 20, 2021
Now we wait for reality to slap his fans in the face, hard.
People who believe baseless conspiracy theories often stay down the rabbit hole because they feel it's embarrassing to admit that they've been misled.
Hopefully tomorrow they will at least open their mind to possibility that they're mistaken, as this woman from Tik Tok does. pic.twitter.com/eibmNeB1sN
— Travis View (@travis_view) January 20, 2021
Nice. Paleontologists found a fossil Psittacosaurus with beautifully preserved scales — they can even see signs of the pigments coloring it — and best of all, they found a perfectly preserved cloaca.
The Frankfurt specimen of Psittacosaurus sp. (SMF R 4970) from the Early Cretaceous Jehol deposits of Liaoning exhibits the best preservation of scale-clad integument in any non-avian dinosaur yet described. Preservation of colour patterns and countershading allowed a detailed reconstruction of this individual’s physical appearance suggesting it was camouflaged for life in a shaded lighting environment. It was previously noted that the cloacal region was preserved2, but its detailed anatomy was incorrectly reconstructed. We show here that the fine anatomy of the vent is remarkably well preserved and can be retrodeformed to illustrate its three-dimensional nature. The vent’s scale anatomy and pigmentation are distinct from adjacent body regions, and although its anatomy does not reveal much information about the ecology, or sex, of this dinosaur, it suggests possible roles for visual and olfactory signalling.
The caption to this figure is messed up. The top half, labeled A, is “Cloacal vents across the tetrapod phylogeny”. The text below refers to the bottom half only, and should be specifying B, C, and D rather than A, B, and C. Looks like a job for an editor.
(A) Cloacal vent region preserved in Psittacosaurus sp. SMF R 4970, photographed with crossed polarised lighting. The specimen is exposed in oblique (right) latero-ventral view. The ischial callosity is defined by its bulging appearance on top of the ischium, having large, rounded scales that are heavily pigmented centrally but become lighter marginally. Posterior to the ischial callosity is the cloacal vent, partly obscured by a preserved coprolite and rock breakage. The lateral lips are defined by their distinct outline, indicated by relief and break of slope due to overlap, and are covered by highly pigmented and overlapping scales with lighter margins (Figure S1C,D). (B) Interpretative drawing of the same region as in (A). (C) 3D reconstruction of the cloacal vent in lateral view. (D) Phylogeny of tetrapods illustrating the diversity of cloacal vent morphologies. Two alternative reconstructions are presented for Psittacosaurus sp. depending on whether the cloacal opening forms a slit onto the dorsal lobe, as in crocodylians (ii), or a rounded hole between the lateral lips, as in birds (i).
Is anyone else waiting for that magical moment when the malign spirit of Donald Trump is exorcised from the White House? We next have to purge the malignancy from the rest of the country.
Earlier, I posted those emails from a creationist telling me that he had a “theory” that united human genomics and Noah’s ark. I told him I was uninterested in the conversation. Of course, he wouldn’t shut up and sent me another email today.
Hello,
Yesterday I sent you my theory on human genetics and Noah’s Ark. Today, I am sending you the theory again in hopes that you’ll read it. It only takes 10 minutes of your time and it’s finding may be life changing. If you will just suspend your disbelief and are willing to entertain the idea that everything we know is wrong, you may find this theory interesting. I am a college graduate in the field of Biology and a former atheist/evolutionist. I am well studied in the theory of evolution as well as new atheism, so I understand this idea might seem absurd at first. However, with an open mind this theory will be life changing.
I’ll give you his “evidence” now. First of all, there is no theory to read: he sent me a pdf titled Theory that is nothing more than a list of biblical patriarchs and the haplogroups he assigns to them. That’s it! A list is not a theory.
To make it even worse, he sent an assortment of images organized by each of the biblical patriarchs — photos of modern people of different races. This is also not a theory. (I’m not attaching that here — it’s pointless.)
Then he sent a map of “Noah’s World”, showing the imaginary migration routes of Noah’s descendent. It’s a map. Not a theory.
And finally, there’s a Y DNA haplogroup map. Not a theory.
My life has not changed, and I don’t find the “theory” very interesting. It is absurd. And stupid.
Not zombies themselves, which are still physiologically impossible, but the way characters deal with them in zombie movies. Horror movies in general are often driven by characters doing absurdly stupid things, and we all say to ourselves “Don’t split up! Don’t go in the basement! Don’t have sex at camp!” and we think the citizenry would never be that idiotic, but nope, they would be.
I get email, still, and I get tired of it all. This is what I got last night.
Modern people are descended from their ancestors (surprising, I know), and we have scientific tools to trace lineages. The Bible has a story about modern people being descended from 8 ancestors who survived a global flood. You can’t wedge the myth into the scientific evidence, and no, that science has demonstrated lines of descent does not validate your petty, simplistic fantasy.
I blurred out their name because they were polite about it all, and stopped when I told them to. If only every Bible-thumper behaved that way.
Now they’re thinking a very silly and unbelievable Nicolas Cage movie (sorry, guys, you can’t do near-instant transfers of faces from one skull to another) and imagining a Perpetual Trump.
I say we should lean into it. Yeah, Joe Biden is possessed by the malignant spirit of Donald Trump, so stand down, Proud Boys. Your president won. Put the guns away, accept everything the Democrats do and say, and start worshipping Biden the same way you did the petty tyrant of the last four years.
One problem: the original Trump is going to be running around screaming at the same time. That corpus is going to have to be…liquidated. Maybe we can just lock him up in some institution somewhere?
They’re monsters, I tell you. They team up with publishers and become real horrors. My colleague here at UMM, Josh Johnson, has written a book I’ve been looking forward to for a while, The Forever Sea, and I get the alert this morning that it has been automatically downloaded into my Kindle app. Today! 19 January! The first day of spring semester classes! So now it’s going to be sitting there, taunting me, and I’m not going to be able to get to it for a while.
Did he do this intentionally, knowing what our academic calendar looks like? Does DAW books routinely torment their academic clients with this kind of scheduling? Temptation is unkind.
The first book in a new environmental epic fantasy series set in a world where ships kept afloat by magical hearthfires sail an endless grass sea.
Hah. The first book in a series. We’ll get even — he’s going to have to write more books while holding down a teaching load!
Since I haven’t read it yet, you’ll have to get by with the testimonials of those who have.
“I can rarely remember being this excited for a debut novel. This was everything I wanted it to be. Wind-swept prairie seas, pirates, magic, and found families.” —Mary Robinette Kowal, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning author of the Lady Astronaut series
“Richly imagined and beautifully written, with a highly original and very creepy magic system—The Forever Sea is wonderful.” —R. F. Kuang, Astounding Award-winning author of The Poppy War
“Loved The Forever Sea. Loved it. Sheer joy.” —Joanne Harris, internationally bestselling author of Chocolat
“A beautifully imagined dive into the unknown.” —G.V. Anderson, World Fantasy Award winning author of “Das Steingeschöpf”
“Beautifully lyrical and imaginative, Johnson’s debut sings a twisting tale of adventure full of diverse characters and a lush world ripe to fall in love with. With a heart that will haunt you, this ecopunk story is unlike any you’ve seen before.” —Linden A. Lewis, author of The First Sister
“Lush descriptions of plant life abound… When combined with the exceptional protagonist and themes of embracing the unknown, [The Forever Sea] calls to mind Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. With a good balance of grit and tenderness, this entertaining story makes a nice addition to the growing hopepunk subgenre.” —Publishers Weekly
“Hopepunk”? Is that a thing now?
