Amongst a very large number of apparent “designs” in nature that certainly won’t compete for any efficiency awards, the laryngeal nerve of many mammals is a magnificent piece of bad engineering. The extreme case of a giraffe is discussed in this video by Richard Dawkins -and would make a great souvenir for Michael Behe’s living room.

In the atheist camp, there are two fundamentally different approaches to countering religious propaganda, irrationality and their attacks on science: the Dawkin-esque full out attack, and the milder “let-the-evidence-do-the-talking” technique that people like Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education have adopted. Richard Dawkins obviously doesn’t like the latter “soft” approach and he has repeatedly made himself clear on that respect, lately by criticizing Scott for being too accommodative.

Good afternoon my loyal readers. The web crawl in the scientific blogosphere is about to begin! Fasten your seatbelts! This instalment includes the not-so-far-fetched possibility of restoring a real-life Mammoth; research reporting on the dangers of vitamin overdose; mishandling of probabilities on the evolution of life “debate”; and putting the blame for an unfortunate student suicide on Richard Dawkins…

As reported last night in the very accurate news media NewsBiscuit, Richard Dawkins is having some difficulties explaining his death and subsequent resurrection.

This week includes a good dosage of Bad Astronomy ranging from astrology and crop circles and their infiltration in academia, some typical psychic quackery, and some actual science reporting on behaviour of ‘cheaters’ in honey bee colonies. Let’s roll!

The Out Campaign is an attempt to raise awareness about atheism, and to bring together people sharing the same ideas and rational thinking. The Out Campaign is not about organizing people to attack religion in numbers! It is about letting people know that being an atheist is an option. It is about letting people know that discrimination against atheists must not be tolerated. It is not about imposing atheism on other people! In fact it is exactly the opposite: to resist dogmatic people wishing to impose their beliefs on others by means of propaganda, brainwashing, lying, and unacceptable methods to infiltrate the educational and political system.

Video: Mrs. Garrison from Southpark explains evolution to the kids: “You’re the retarded offspring of five monkeys having butt sex with a fish squirrel, congratulations!”

When did dinosaurs exist? Surely it must have been some time ago. 3000 years maybe? No? More?!