March 9 - Happy Birthday, PZ Myers!

Key points

nPosted on March 9, 2017

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nBring on the octopi, the squid, and the Cthulhu!
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nOr…bring on the zebrafish?
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nPaul Zachary Myers, way way way better known as PZ Myers, is an evolutionary developmental biologist who teaches at the University of Minnesota Morris. He works with zebrafish and has an affection for the tentacled cephalopods – a group of animals that include the octopus, the squid, the cuttlefish, the nautilus, the extinct ammonites, and perhaps even the fictional Lovecraftian monster Cthulhu!
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nWhy is PZ Myers known outside of his university and the world’s evolutionary developmental biologists?
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nHe writes a blog, called Pharyngula, and his confrontational style and unapologetic liberal views reached a much larger audience. As a matter of fact, in 2006 Nature magazine rated his blog #1 of all blogs written by scientists, based on popularity!
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nPZ Myers has also published books and won awards by humanist organizations and spoken at conferences.
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nMyers’s confrontational style means that he gets involved in a lot of … well, controversies! Some of them have been about intelligent design, which is supposed to be science. Religious beliefs and faith can be discussed – even debated – but generally fall outside of the realm of science. But some religious believers try to make science agree with their own pre-conceived ideas, based on their own or others’ understanding of their holy book or other revelations. Needless to say, science doesn’t work that way.
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nThe claims of intelligent design are fairly complex to explain – let alone to argue against / refute / disprove / debunk. But here is a semi-simple explanation of why intelligent design is not science.
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nHere are some PZ quotes:
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