The Bible also says to kill people with tattoos or who eat shrimp, but you never hear them talk about that, do you?
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.
So obviously, they’ve never really watched a lunar eclipse. (By the way, we’re having another one Friday night.)
This story is seven years old. Bill Nye spoke about it on Countdown seven years ago when it happened and indicated that it was no big deal, he didn’t feel heckled, and there weren’t many people who had an issue with what he said.
I’m a member of the Planetary Society, of which Bill Nye is now Director, and I see updates about his activities every once in a while. He’s actually on an explicit mission at this point to tell it like it is, especially — not just incidentally — when there’s contrary bible mythology. Good on him! Makes me feel smuggish about being a Plantery Soc member. 🙂
These same “We believe in God” people in Waco also believe that George Bush was a wnoderful president. They vote Republican and believe that the Bible was the last book ever written and so is the only book needing to be read. The Islamic, Jewish, and other religious fundamentalists are the non-Christian version of these people. They could all easily become “terrorists.” Hopefully the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, Micky Mouse, ect. have all of these people under surveillance.
Again, according to Nye a few people were upset by him, but most of the people remained in the room and cheered loudly at the end of his talk. It isn’t really fair to characterize the “good people of Waco” as they were described in the quoted article.
Isn’t Waco the place where 60+ children were set on fire by the FBI because they had a beef with David Koresh (sp)? Waco has also been the setting for a variety of hate and other weird crimes in the past. Maybe it’s in the water?