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...

74 members like this

Comment by MightyMateo on February 21, 2009 at 9:09am: I dont even know what to say to this, absolutely absurd.

Comment by Rev. Tom Hicks, D.D. on February 21, 2009 at 10:05am: Wow, literacy has been taken way too far here. That's just crazy & I know me some crazy.

Comment by Krysis on February 21, 2009 at 2:18pm: Extremely sad how big of a black drape religion puts on a persons reason and knowledge...

Comment by Mark on February 21, 2009 at 3:30pm: the moon reflects? that's absurd, god photoshopped it in 6,000 years ago, hehehe

Comment by Scadilla on February 21, 2009 at 6:25pm: The truth scares some people. I think a good amount of people still think the sun revolves around the Earth.

Comment by Frink on February 22, 2009 at 4:21am: the earth is flat! *headdesk*

Comment by Séamus on March 17, 2009 at 11:03am: I have done extensive in-depth spectral-graphological studies of just about every type of cheese out there, and none of them reflect much of a 60w bulb at all.

If what this "science guy" says is true, the moon would be a dullish brown.
With green bits, since 4000 year old cheese is gonna go that way.

Explain that, science freaks !

Comment by Bob/Paul on March 17, 2009 at 6:19pm: The story was /PROBABLY/ pulled because it's 3 years old. Look at the URL for the original story. This was published April 6, 2006. Perhaps they pulled it down early, but I suspect it was pulled a year or two ago because its an OLD article and many small newspapers don't keep online archives indefinitely. Heck, Yahoo!News doesn't even!

Comment by mcm on April 1, 2009 at 6:01pm: First Bill Nye considers himself agnostic not atheist (he is quoted as answering "You really can't know" to the God question). Second the Hebrew word for light in Genesis 1:16 is "ma'owr" which means luminous, this applies to radiating OR reflecting light. So Genesis 1:16 is factually, scientifically, and theologically correct (sorry Bill).

Comment by Johnny on April 1, 2009 at 7:41pm: mcm, your first point is irrelevant, the article did not claim that Bill Nye was atheist.

For your second, how can you say "sorry Bill" (implying he was wrong), when according to your translation he accidentally agreed with the Bible?

I'm not an expert on the Hebrew language, but searching Google nets several translations for "ma'owr." Including 'lights' 'light' 'moon' 'illuminator' 'luminaries' and 'bright.' And I am unable to find any online Hebrew translator that recognizes the word "ma'owr." Additionally, although luminous does have "reflecting or giving off light" as a secondary definition, its primary definition is "emitting light, especially emitting self-generated light."

BUT, you miss the point of the article completely. The point is that Bill Nye stated a scientific fact about the moon reflecting light; and a group of religious people boo'd him because their interpretation of the Bible conflicted with science.