Chat with PZ Myers HERE!

[Kate]

How do you see "Sciencewoman" posting as a "mommy"?

(Not exactly atheistic, but I see it as something of an I'm-not-a-threatening-female kind of stance.....part of that white male dominated xian culture??)

[Eva]

As almost top dog here, i go with this:

::tone of solemnity::

On behalf of the unwashed, but well meaning-masses of the Raving Atheists Forum I wish to thank you for your kindness and patience.
It's been an amazing evening and we hope you feel the same.
We hope you come back again, frequently, to chat, lurk, post and relax.
Again, we thank you for this honor and wait for your book to come out.

PZ, thanks so much for dropping by.... I'd like to ask one last question, but it requires reading of off-site material: below I'll slap up the link to a post at Overcoming Bias that riffs of the X-Men and talks about public perceptions of science which I would love to read your take on at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future...

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/0...e-as-lite.html

Professor Chaos wrote

Do you think it's important for atheists to maintain a dialogue with the religious community?

Yes! But compromising our principles to accommodate their superstitions short-circuits any dialogue. They're going to have to accept us as we are -- disbelief and all.

Come on man! Can we get any details on this book? Does Harry die? Is Snape a good guy or a bad guy?

ocmpoma wrote

PZ, thanks so much for dropping by.... I'd like to ask one last question, but it requires reading of off-site material: below I'll slap up the link to a post at Overcoming Bias that riffs of the X-Men and talks about public perceptions of science which I would love to read your take on at some point in the (hopefully) not too distant future...

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/0...e-as-lite.html

X-Men sucked. The "science" of the whole thing was ridiculous.

Kate wrote

How do you see "Sciencewoman" posting as a "mommy"?

Mommy is an important role. Disrespecting it is one of the contributors to the diminishment of women.

[Rhinoqulous]

Hey PZ, what do you think of attempts to organize atheist into coherent groups, such as Dennett's "Bright" movement?

[Professor Chaos]

Oh, hey, if you're into a little bit of quid pro quo maybe a short blog entry linking to this thread would be pretty sweet.

whoneedscience wrote

Come on man! Can we get any details on this book? Does Harry die? Is Snape a good guy or a bad guy?

What? Snape was the only good guy in the whole thing! Potter was a pathetic distraction.

PZ Myers wrote

X-Men sucked. The "science" of the whole thing was ridiculous.

Are there any scifi movies you can watch without cringing at terrible science content?

[Kate]

PZ Myers wrote

Mommy is an important role. Disrespecting it is one of the contributors to the diminishment of women.

I like that!

PZ Myers wrote

X-Men sucked. The "science" of the whole thing was ridiculous.

Which is somewhat the point of the post at OB:
"The X-Men comics use terms like "evolution", "mutation", and "genetic code", purely to place themselves in what they conceive to be the literary genre of science. The part that scares me is wondering how many people, especially in the media, understand science only as a literary genre."

[Eva]

PZ, were you really scared with your recent lawsuit? that was big money...

have to say, Peter Irons really wrote the other guy's lawyer a little gem of jurisprudence...that letter, I understand, was all it took for the suit to be thrown? or did you have personal lawyers involved in that ridiculous fracas too?

[Rhinoqulous]

ocmpoma wrote

Which is somewhat the point of the post at OB:
"The X-Men comics use terms like "evolution", "mutation", and "genetic code", purely to place themselves in what they conceive to be the literary genre of science. The part that scares me is wondering how many people, especially in the media, understand science only as a literary genre."

Using the term "literary" that many times in reference to the X-Men is nothing but hilarious.