Pharyngula

Baylor rededicates itself to bible college status

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:23:53 -0500

The president of Baylor, John M. Lilley, was fired abruptly yesterday. He demonstrated insufficient dedication to their "faith mission", so of course he had to go. I'm sure the ID crowd will be pleased — by encouraging a stronger "Christian vision", the next president of the university will probably encourage more Intelligent Design nonsense…which, of course, is an entirely secular concept that is not reliant on faith or Christian visions. Right.

I also have to say that this diagram accompanying the commentary is spot on.

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A slight delay

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:49:41 -0500

We were supposed to have a new edition of the Tangled Bank this week, at the Blue Collar Scientist — but has more serious real-life issues with which to contend, so unsurprisingly it has not made it up yet, and I haven't heard back from my email query. If I don't hear anything by this afternoon, I'll put something together myself — no blame to the BCS, of course, and please do give him your support.

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Friday Cephalopod: a subtle overlord in blue pastels

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:38:54 -0500

Sepia smithi

Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide ^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}, by Mark Norman.

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Dr Chilingar, AKA Dr Chill

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:33:16 -0500

Most of you haven't seen Sizzle, but there is one global warming denier in the movie who is a wonderfully strange character, Dr Chilingar. He is interestingly idiosyncratic, but the movie didn't really pursue his views very far…but Tim Lambert has. Chilingar is guilty of comparing CO₂ over billions of years to human CO₂ over centuries and using formulas that assume greenhouse effects don't change to argue that greenhouse gases will have no effect.

<hack> <hack> Excuse me, I had a little cough.

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One goofy site

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:14:29 -0500

How sad. I no longer have the lead headline at Spirit Daily: I've been bumped by WORRIES ON POTTER BEAR OUT IN AN EXPLOSION OF TEEN WITCHCRAFT. How fickle these Catholics are, and how easily they are frightened by imaginary concerns.

(By the way, Spirit Daily is one of the best places to go if you want to see spiritual wackaloonery — they glean the web for the craziest stuff.)

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A gift from Oregon

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:02:20 -0500

Regular commenter Patricia sent me a present — isn't this pretty?

The octopus pendant is also very nice. You can get your own at the Emerson Glass Art Studio, if you're envious.

Thanks, Patricia! I will get it away from my cervical model someday, I'm sure.

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What it's like to be me

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:07:12 -0500

P.S. All you happy Minnesotans should be pleased to hear that Roy will be in Minneapolis on 1-4 September. I'll be sure to put up details as they become available.

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The Great Desecration

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:00:24 -0500

It is finished.

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Voices of science

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:55:27 -0500

On his last visit to the US, Richard Dawkins was having little conversations with various people — people like Steven Weinberg, Lawrence Krauss, and David Buss — and recording them. Now you can get them on DVD. It's a clever and understated idea; instead of having these guys lecture at a crowd, capture them in some quiet one-on-one conversation.

Yeah, I'm in there, too. Unfortunately, I just can't watch myself. The others are very good, though!

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Fresh thread

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:43:47 -0500

This is just to handle the overflow from this closed thread.

You crackerbaters are insane.

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A little preliminary heresy

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:30:11 -0500

You know nothing is sacred around here. Well, I saw The Dark Knight last night and … didn't care for it. It was OK as an action movie, but the story was a mess. The plot wandered all over, and the movie seemed less interested in telling a story well than in throwing up moral ambiguity and ethical dilemmas which, instead of actually pursuing with any depth, it would resolve with a punch from Batman's fist or an explosion. As a plot mover, the Joker was less an agent of chaos and more like the TA for a freshman philosophy course, leading everyone through twisty little exercises in artificial circumstances that present the poor student with difficult choices. The answers in the movie were about the level of superficiality I'd expect from naive freshmen: he's not a hero, he's more than a hero, he's a guardian, or something. Unbelievably, the dialog actually spelled out such empty nonsense.

Although, it might make such courses much more interesting if, instead of writing papers, the students had to make their arguments in fistfights and pyrotechnics.

On the good side, though, the portrayal of the Joker by Heath Ledger has to be one of the best movie villains ever. That guy was scary — you wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, and Ledger made you believe that you just might find someone like him in a dark alley somewhere. He set the screen on fire, and made the guy in the batman suit recede into irrelevance. If only he'd been given a screenplay that was less stagey pinball machine, and more focused.

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Priorities

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:02:42 -0500

Yes, the sad little cracker has met its undignified end, so stop pestering me. The cracker, the koran, and another surprise entry have been violated and are gone. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the details, what little of them there are. I must quickly apologize to all you good Catholics who were hoping to attend Mass, since you can't anymore — I have been told many hundreds of times now that cracker abuse violates your right to practice your religion. I guess you'll have to adapt. Secular humanism is a good alternative, if you aren't already flocking to join the Mormons.

Anyway, I've got important things to do today. It's my oldest son's birthday, and I told him that as a gift to me him, I'd take ~~myself~~ him to see The Dark Knight. I sure hope the world doesn't end before the movie does.

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Evolution happens

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:56:48 -0500

Olivia Judson has a lovely article about ongoing examples of evolution.

Before the creationists start whining, I know — they're still birds and lizards and flies. Get over it. They've changed, as evolution predicts.

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Snake segmentation

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:28:58 -0500

Life has two contradictory properties that any theory explaining its origin must encompass: similarities everywhere, and differences separating species. So far, the only theory that covers both beautifully and explains how one is the consequence of the other is evolution. Common descent unites all life on earth, while evolution itself is about constant change; similarities are rooted in our shared ancestry, while differences arise as lineages diverge.

Now here's a new example of both phenomena: the development of segmentation in snakes. We humans have 33 vertebrae, zebrafish have 30-33, chickens have 55, mice have 65, and snakes have up to 300 — there's about a ten-fold range right there. There are big obvious morphological and functional differences, too: snakes are sinuous slitherers notable for their flexibility, fish use their spines as springs for side-to-side motion, chickens fuse the skeleton into a bony box, and humans are upright bipeds with backaches. Yet underlying all that diversity is a common thread, that segmented vertebral column.

(Click for larger image)
Vertebral formula and somitogenesis in the corn snake. a, Alizarin staining of a corn snake showing 296 vertebrae, including 3 cervical, 219 thoracic, 4 cloacal (distinguishable by their forked lymphapophyses) and 70 caudal. b, Time course of corn snake development after egg laying (118-somite embryo on the far left) until the end of somitogenesis (~315 somites).

The similarities are a result of common descent. The differences, it turns out, arise from subtle changes in developmental timing.

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We don't?

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:28:56 -0500

Nick Spencer of the Telegraph says Americans don't do atheism. It's a weird piece that frets over the religiosity of American politicians, but somehow seems to find it reassuring that there are different ways to be religious, and that maybe the US is moving away from dominionist wackaloonery towards religously-motivated social activism — doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, in other words. There's a germ of hope there, that the country might get somewhat less insane — but at the same time it represents an opportunity to entrench superstition deeper into the republic. I really don't consider a liberal theocracy any better than a conservative theocracy: both are built on ignorance and dogma.

Worse, Spencer thinks Rick Warren, glib cult-leader and bubble-gum philosopher, is a good thing for the country. Blah. He seems to be a nice fellow on some subjects, but ultimately he's a patriarchal loon who thinks gays and atheists will burn in hell. Maybe he is representative of the country, though…superficially earnest and well meaning, with a seething core of stupid that means we'll do horrible things in spite of good intentions.

That isn't anything to inspire optimism.

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