Pharyngula
Mary’s Monday Metazoan: I was thinking of getting my hair done
Posted by PZ Myers on July 16, 2012 And then I felt intimidated. (via Echinoblog)
And everyone gets a robot pony!
Posted by PZ Myers on July 14, 2012 Oy, singularitarians. Chris Hallquist has a post up about the brain uploading problem — every time I see this kind of discussion, I cringe at the simple-minded naivete that’s always on display. Here’s all we have to do to upload a brain, for instance: The version of the uploading idea: take a preserved dead brain,…
The carpenter and the pyromaniac
Posted by PZ Myers on July 13, 2012 A very familiar story: a creationist is told that her views are unsupported by any legitimate science, and in reply she rattles off a list of creationist “scientists”. Here we are told by a creationist housewife — as she describes herself — defending her belief that the Giant’s Causeway is only as old as the…
Friday Cephalopod: I’m so tired of cute
Posted by PZ Myers on July 13, 2012 Give me grizzled, battered, and well-worn. Plasticky, smooth, and fresh is so freaking uninteresting.
Brains and beaks
Posted by PZ Myers on July 13, 2012 I’m always telling people you need to understand development to understand the evolution of form, because development is what evolution modifies to create change. For example, there are two processes most people have heard of. One is paedomorphosis, the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood — a small face and large cranium are features of…
Botanical Wednesday: Don’t blame me, my wife sends these to me
Posted by PZ Myers on July 12, 2012 I think she’s just got one thing on her mind. The insects crawling all over it add a creepy touch, though.
Europe is getting a wedgie
Posted by PZ Myers on July 12, 2012 I’m glad someone at the New Humanist is catching on: that little bit of performance art at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, in which the creationists got their falsified myth inserted into the National Trust’s exhibits, is exactly how they operate. Every little advantage is pursued in order to falsify the existence of legitimate…
Swimming in the Cambrian
Posted by PZ Myers on July 11, 2012 If you ever get a chance, spend some time looking at fish muscles in a microscope. Larval zebrafish are perfect; they’re transparent and you can trace all the fibers, so you can see everything. The body musculature of fish is most elegantly organized into repeating blocks of muscle along the length of the animal, each…
Mary’s Monday Metazoan: Nice view
Posted by PZ Myers on July 10, 2012 (via NatGeo.)
Did Ancient Aliens visit the earth and guide human evolution?
Posted by PZ Myers on July 9, 2012 No. One other event I participated in was a “debate” with an ancient alien theorist. It was very peculiar, as you might guess. The way this came about was that Scotty Roberts, the alien astronaut fan, proposed a session on his wacky speculations, and the conference organizers didn’t want such lunacy to sail through without…