Bill Nye Boo'd In Texas For Saying The Moon Reflects The Sun
Bill Nye, the harmless children's edu-tainer known as "The Science Guy," managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.
As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.
But don't tell that to the good people of Waco, who were "visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence," according to the Waco Tribune.
Nye was in town to participate in McLennan Community College's Distinguished Lecture Series. He gave two lectures on such unfunny and adult topics as global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption.
But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars."
The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.
At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled "We believe in God!" and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they'd always suspected.
This story originally appeared in the Waco Tribune, but the newspaper has mysteriously pulled its story from the online version, presumably to avoid further embarrassment.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/04/06/040620...
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Comment by Brandy D on July 5, 2012 at 11:05pm -
Archaeopteryx - That is exactly what I meant; I just couldn't remember details and didn't want to bother looking them up because I have a bunch of stuff that I should be doing tonight [doing real well at getting it done too, seeing I am reading email and came back here. :-)]
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Comment by archaeopteryx on July 5, 2012 at 11:16pm -
I believe I would complain to your individual State Board of Education, and spread the word and organize others to do so as well. See, that's how corrupt democracies work - it takes a handful of people to create a problem, and thousands to correct it. That's how they win, because it's next to impossible to get those thousands together.
Coming together forced this country to extend civil rights to all races, and forced the country to leave Viet Nam, so we know it can be done.
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Comment by archaeopteryx on July 6, 2012 at 12:01am
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BrandyD - glad I could help, unlike you, I was just hangin' out, not doing much of anything, and decided, what the hey --!
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Comment by archaeopteryx on August 25, 2012 at 3:33pm
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Bill Nye Strikes Back!
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka "The Science Guy," if grownups want to "deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them."
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Comment by archaeopteryx on August 25, 2012 at 3:34pm
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Bill Nye Strikes Back!
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka "The Science Guy," if grownups want to "deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them."
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 11:01am
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True, but irrelevant - the Bible, an inerrant book, the writing of which was overseen by an all-powerful god who created the universe, should be accurate in its scientific assertions. If the Bible implies that the moon makes its own light, then by god, it needs to make its own light. Unless maybe the Bible's wrong --?
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Comment by Ken Hughes on December 5, 2012 at 11:31am -
In any event it's all based on a book written long before science gave menkind a clear view of what's going on in the cosmos and is therefore mostly idiotic holy-man ramblings and speculation warped to suit some preconceptions to support a yth, so what difference does it make in the end. Some peple will insist on being stupid and having their intellect dulled down to the lowest holy-roller concept; f * ^ $ 'em.
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Comment by Heather Spoonheim on December 5, 2012 at 12:09pm -
The point, Stephen, is that the bible is factually wrong because it wasn't written/inspired by some all-knowing deity. It has the sun being created after the earth, it has outer space being filled with water and the sky being a firm dome that separates the water above from the water below. It has the rest of the cosmos being created as a mere afterthought - after the sun and the moon. The greater/lesser light issue was just a Bill's way of politely pointing out that one cannot learn about the cosmos from a Bronze Age book of superstitious drivel.
The reason the story is interesting to us is that Christians are generally incapable of dealing with factual claims and just act like children - storming out. It's really a cute little tale about the intellectually repugnant state of destroying a human mind with cult indoctrination. Ok? Thank you.
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Comment by Ken Hughes on December 5, 2012 at 12:19pm
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Well said Heather, well said indeed. I've been an atheist for almost 30-years after being a skeptic from earliest memory and an agnostic up until I declared my non-belief after being dragged to an Assembly of doG for a year by my missus. I now refer to myself as a "Card-carrying atheist" because I do precisely that. My calling cards have the Greek atheos under my name and I am not hesitant to give them out even here in deepest, darkest Wise County Texas (the "Wise" name is an oxymoron for a Texas county. A local friend and I have started the Wise Free Thinkers & Atheist MeetUp group and meet ever other Sunday @ 12:30 in the local Starbucks. "Bill Ney the Science Guy" rules!!!!!
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Comment by archaeopteryx on December 5, 2012 at 12:44pm
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It matters a great deal, Stephen, because it indicates that those who wrote the Bible had no clue as to how their universe worked, and if they were "inspired" by a creator who made everything, one must wonder why they were given bad information. One can only assume, a) their god fed them false facts, or b), they made them up on their own, without any "heavenly inspiration," which, by extension, implies that if one part of the Bible was not divinely inspired, then either none of it was, and is subject to the same flaws throughout, or that we must pick and choose which parts were divinely inspired, and which were invented by fertile, but inaccurate, imaginations of men. Which really leads us to question if in fact, ANY of the Bible was "inspired," or if it was, how incompetant a leader their god must have be, not to have done a more efficient job of informing his followers factually.
Even your last statement is innacurate - have you honestly NEVER seen the moon out in the daytime? And completely absent from sight at night? How effective is an absentee ruler?
You're young and naive - go read some science books COSMOS, by Carl Sagan leaps to mind, if you only have time for one - then come back and re-read the Bible. Maybe by then, you will have acquired some degree of wisdom.
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