I'm beginning to consider the possibility that I'm secretly a masochist. I can't come up with any other explanation for why I would end up in a debate on FB with a childhood friend about evolution and creationism ( Read more... )

A happy Darwin Day to everyone! I'd like to say I'm going to celebrate, but actually I'm going to spend the day working and trying not to strangle my daughter or her friend Isabelle. I figure somebody on Scienceblogs.com will post something interesting about Darwin and reading that will be my celebration ( Read more... )

::yawn:: Didn't get as much work done today as I'd hoped, but some. Avi took the kids to sushi, then the playground for a little while. (Yael was happy because Isabelle came along and Barak is happy any time there are people willing to smile at him.) Then I did some more work while Yael went to Isabelle's house, then we got vegetarian Chinese and ( Read more... )

Since I'm up at 4:30 am with my cold (been up since 3:30, actually), I might as well rant for a bit.

This early early morning, I'd like to comment on an aspect of creationism/intelligent design I've only seen addressed a few times. (Most recently, I read Christopher Hitchens' book God Is Not Great and he had some things to say that prompt this ( Read more... )

So there I am, reading my new issue of Skeptical Inquirer, when I notice on the back cover that the Center for Inquiry's 2009 World Conference is going to be fifteen minutes from my house in Bethesda. Yes, Bethesda! Christopher Hitchens, James Randi, Elizabeth Loftus...in Bethesda! Rational people! Science! Skepticism! In Bethesda! I was already ( Read more... )

And while I'm feeling cranky about humanity, you can read Just Like Dover, in which we learn that the Brunswick, NC school board is dumber than a bag of rocks.

"I wasn't here 2 million years ago," Fanti said. "If evolution is so slow, why don't we see anything evolving now?"

As a commenter at Pharyngula notes, you just know he was dying to ask ( Read more... )

As usual, Greta Christina brilliantly articulates something that bugs me: "People of Faith": Religion as Ethical Misdirection.

Ever since I started writing about atheism and religion, I've been troubled by the idea that being a strongly religious person, in and of itself, makes you a good person ( Read more... )

Another thing I haven't been posting about is the idiotic movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Because really, everybody knows what I think of creationism, I suspect. So, nobody needs another rant from me about the intellectual dishonesty of the movie's producers and how they lied to PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, and my beloved Eugenie Scott and ( Read more... )

::laughs hysterically:: If you're at all familiar with the evolution/ID debate, you gotta watch Pimpin' Dawkins. If nothing else, just Eugenie Scott and Christopher Hitchens as backup singers makes it worth it. But the lyrics are fabulous! ::dies:: "He's still smarter than you/he studied biology" and "If I was dyslexic/I'd hate dog too." I don't ( Read more... )

::dies:: From Wired Magazine: Top Ten Creationist Discoveries of All Time

Also, I meant to link to the vitally important news from Firefox News: LJ Announces New Policy: Electric Shocks to Be Administered to All Non-Ad-Viewing Users.

And medie reviews the Smallville episode "Janus."

Okay okay, I'm going back to work now, I swear.