Good thing he didn't tell them about the Earth around the Sun thing.
I wasn't aware of this. Bill Nye "The Science Guy" was booed in Waco, Texas in 2006 for suggesting the Moon did not generate its own light, but reflected light from the sun. (Update: You can find more here. Interview with the reporter here.)
Trouble started when the children's entertainer 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," and pointed out that the lesser light was actually a reflector.
At this point, several people in the audience stormed out, including woman with three small children who muttered, "We believe in God!" and left.
Nye was taking part in McLennan Community College's Distinguished Lecture Series, giving talks on global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption, but it was the moon thing that got them.
According to Morgan Matthew, "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."
(Update: Apparently, this isn't the case. The Waco Tribune has been kind enough to repost the story here for free. And they even had a Q&A from NYE here.)
(For Other nonsense, see the case of the missing New Scientist story "How to Spot a Hidden Religious Agenda", the myths of "The Cooling World", Creationism and Columbine Myths Exposed.)
Comments
Bill Nye Moons Crowd !!!
Never heard of this science guy. Where is Waco?
Waco is texas, apparently all that funding and they still can't teach regular science? regardless of what the bible says on that, the moon does reflect light from the sun, otherwise there'd be no dark side of the moon, and nobody would know who pink floyd is
Hey now, don't drag Texas into this as a whole. It is only Waco we're talking about.
sorry there austinite, it didn't sound broad enough, but I was referring only to waco.
DID YOU KNOW THAT
Some people in Waco, Texas take the Bible so literally, they don't believe the moon reflects light from the sun?
NOW YOU KNOW
Man... i try telling that to some co-workers up here in Canada and they tell me no one can be that dumb!
"No child left behind' should have been called 'No brains left behind' in Waco...
I live halfway across the world and I've yet to hear of people this dumb. "Three" thumbs up people of Waco.
This is the bottom 25% that think the republicans are awesome!
I think that even if God himself came down and told them the moon reflected the suns light, they'd still say... but the bible says...
And how does the fact that the moon is not made of cheese rustle "Mother Hen's feathers?". Stupid people are all over the world, and its everybody's fault. Its when they are proud of being dumber than a rock that hilarity ensues. Poor kids...
Let Rick Perry have Texas (and Oklahoma). They are dragging us down.
Well, he was speaking in the thick part of what James Howard Kunstler calls the Moron Crescent...
Waco pwned! There's your headline.
As a Texan, it frustrates me to see so many people point out a foolish woman's ignorance and then attribute it to my state's educational system. Texas is really large. There are idiots everywhere. So we have a large total number of idiots. This story highlights that fact but please look at the quote:
"The second group also was rapt from the beginning, greeting the scientist with
a raucous standing ovation upon his introduction."
wasnt it texas that had the educational system CHANGE the history books for school children to match thier own religious right views of the world??
You've got to be kidding me. I'm embarrassed for the intelligent people living in Texas. There has to be some somewhere.
This is ancient news and comments about it being pull are wrong. The article has not been pulled from the Trib. It is still online in the archives with several other comments and such about the incident. Get your head out of your butt and check these things before you mouth off.
Texas really isn't as big as you thing... but it is still a pretty big embarrassment.
That town's missing a 'K' Somewhere in it's name.. HINT: (not near the 'W' or the 'O')
Don't worry Bill, the opinions of religious nut bags really don't matter, at the end of the day they will be the first to perish in any type of a global incident
Ha! People got mad at this? Simply because he contradicted something from the bible with actual proof?
He wasn't ripping on organized religion, or the bible, and people actually Booed him for giving accurate, and correct information! It just doesn't make any sense, how can someone be so willfully ignorant!? It boggles the mind.
He didn't even contradict the bible. The bible says a lesser light for the night. It doesn't say anything about how the light is provided. I am a Christian and I live in Texas. I love the bible and Bill Nye. It is allowed.
Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!Bill! Bill! Bill!Bill! Bill!
Wow!! This really proves just how irrational and close minded the religious sector really is. Its scientific proof that the moon reflects light from the sun. That woman dimisses scienitific evidence cuz shes ignorant and close minded. I just hope her kids are more rational then she is. I hope that woman knows that the numbers show that more and more people are abandoning organized religion every year for a reason. Religion has been the cause of more deaths over the course of time then any disease or famon. (The Holocaust, The Fighting on the Gaza Strip, The Crusades and The Spanish Inquisition) Those are 3 really good examples. You people who believe, need to do one of two things. Let go of your old world beliefs or stop pressing them on other people. Keep your ignorant, idiotic, and just flat out stupid beliefs and comments to yourself. I SPECIFICALLY MEAN THAT WOMAN WITH THE 3 KIDS!
here are a few quotes that seem to give some "light" to this conspiracy.
[Creation science is] an attempt to give credibility to Hebrew mythology by making people believe that the world's foremost biologists, paleontologists, and geologists are a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. ~Ron Peterson
Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their religion. ~Lemuel K. Washburn
Religion seems to have a way of making people abandon logic. ~Amanda Baxter
I was there, and the woman was a highly strung religious nut. We've had others similar to that in the AREA (David Koresh) which is also attributed to Waco yet he lived about 10 miles outside the Waco city limits in an neighboring town.
All of those that judge Waco to be an apparent ignorant town within an ignorant State must inherently be ignorant also because this woman is an American living in America and also a human so therefore it should reflect negatively on the entire world, right?
Intelligence is verging on extinction, and you're contributing to the downfall.
I second what ebranch says!
Dylan: The following quote in your story is absurd:
According to Morgan Matthew, "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."
All of our local online stories cycle into our archives after 30 days. If you search for Bill Nye in our archives, it will pull up a link to the original story, as well as a Q&A with Nye and all subsequent stories.
Bruce Kabat
Internet general manager
Waco Tribune-Herald
Bruce, you can easily program your 404 pages anyway you want on the servers, including to provide a link to the archive. Otherwise simply provided a 404 that says the page can't be found is your own company telling the world it was pulled.
Don't judge us all by waco... please
please... that's the worst city/town/hole I've ever been to. It's something in the water, the waco Indians cursed that place when they left !
well ok, maybe not, but don't judge us all by them.
It never ceases to amaze me that fairly intelligent people have based their lives on an archaic book, assembled from a compendium of texts whose origin is a speculation, written and rewritten for over 2000 years; edited, compiled and translated by unknown desert dwelling Bedouins, who may or may not have made edits, deletions, errors, or added their own opinions and maladjusted logic, with blatant textual contradictions within the existing chapters.
Yet the purveyors of that text have not been forthright enough to even suggest that there is the slightest chance of error, continued to brainwash and indoctrinate their offspring, and ignored that the original writers lived in a time when a BIC lighter or a hot shower would have appeared to be a "miracle". Countless minions, who have ignored natural selection and genetics, to propagate a way of life responsible for death, destruction, humanistic turmoil and thwarted intellectual development, given more plausible, scientifically based accounts of historical interpretation. People intelligent enough to confront a checkout clerk at the local Mc Donald's with a $.39 error, but not intelligent enough to question religious dogma, support a jealous, malevolent, sky fairy, and threaten a post-life region of overwhelming damnation for ogling the neighbors wife.
Generations and generations of the mindless; not able to recognize the difference between faith and fate. Driven to print bumper stickers to "Stop Abortion", but with sufficient ingrained hatred to sanction the death of the doctors. Ever ready to proselytize their evangelical bunk to those they perceive to be less humane than themselves. Ever vigilant for an opportunity to point out the perceived flaws of others, while forgetting their own. To quote Ian Anderson, "If Jesus saves, he better save himself from the gory glory seekers, who use his name in jest."
Hasn't this woman ever looked at a quarter moon or a lunar eclipse and wondered why part of the moon was "turned off"? What did she think God was conserving energy or something?
I'm all for believing the people that booed Bill are quite ignorant, but don't bring up David Koresh unless you want to prove your own ignorance. The events that happened at his commune NEAR Waco... you know where all of his followers were KILLED by OUR GOVERNMENT... for what? Peacefully residing in a large house? "Child abuse" has been disproven along with the idea that they were "going to start a killing spree" with all the guns in their "compound." David Koresh was a licensed gun dealer! So my point is, don't start calling everyone out in Waco, Texas as a religious nut because Koresh and his followers were all good natured people and were also not specifically CHRISTIAN.
/end rant
Texas - it's like a whole other century.
I live in Waco, and yes there are a lot of retarded people who live here. . .Thankfully, not everyone is as dumb and closed minded as she is.
What a great piece of spin. The uproar was not over the moon being a reflector, it is over Nye's open attack on religion. They were there to see an entertaining science show with their children, not listen to an antireligion rant. You managed to ignore the context of the statements and spin this to make it look like those how are religious, particularly southern bible belt types, are retarded idiots who believe the moon to be a gigantic glowing ball of cheese.
Jeremy, go play in traffic.
Southern bible belt types are retarded idiots who believe the moon to be a gigantic glowing ball of cheese.
Chris,
Your ignorance and lack of reading comprehension is astounding, please read my post again and think about it for a few days and maybe you will realize that I was not referring to Waco as being full of religious nuts, but stereotyped as such. David Koresh was a peaceful man living in a peaceful compound full of peaceful fully automatic rifles and peacefully shot and killed many DEA officers who were going to escort his want to be Jesus self to jail. We'll go ahead and end this here and go back to the main story.
I would like to point out that this article is proof that just about anyone can spin anything to appear to be what they want to make it. If this idiot can do it, I believe some idiot out there could actually make Obama appear to not have bowed in front of the Saudi King.
After having discussions with many US creationists and particularly the young earth variant this comes as no surprise to me.
It still both amuses and vaguely worries me.
I just died a little bit inside.
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
Genesis 1:16 "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."
"and [Bill] pointed out that the lesser light was actually a reflector."
The moon is a light. It doesn't need to generate it's own light to be a called a light.... Read More
Dictionary.com definition of light:
"1. something that makes things visible or affords illumination: All colors depend on light."
The sun makes the moon visible. The moon makes the earth visible at night.
The moon is a light.
Bill was booed because he tried to discredit the Bible infront of an audience than can't respond back. I wouldn't have left saying "We believe in a God". I would have stayed and said "I believe in the Biblical God. Bill's inability to properly apply the knowledge of God's word is deceptive to his young audience."
Well said, Brent!
Brent, the moon is not the source of light at night - it just reflects the sun. He wasn't trying to discredit the bible, he was just stating what the source of light was - the moon is NOT the source it's just a reflector.
Anyone who thinks that's well put is about as bright as the people who decided to walk out.
That's no moon, it's a space station!
teknigfx - excellent, pretty much sums it all......
"Brent, the moon is not the source of light at night - it just reflects the sun. He wasn't trying to discredit the bible, he was just stating what the source of light was - the moon is NOT the source it's just a reflector."
I know the moon does not generate it's own light. So did the author of Genesis. Something does not need to generate it's own light to be called a light. The moon is not "just" a reflector. The moon is a light that is powered by the sun, thanks to its ability to reflect.
The moon is a light AKA reflector. Thanks God, for your amazing life system and everlasting words of wisdom!
Bill Nye; Praise our creator for the two LIGHTS he's given us! Without them you would live in world of darkness!
WWJD?
Good for Bill Nye telling it like it is....Ignorance is bliss they say, but it comes with the price of looking like a buffoon.
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