Bill O'Reilly and Science

bill knows nothing about science.

Epic fail!

"All the works of science cannot equal the wisdom of cattle-sacrificing primitives who thought every animal species in the world lived within walking distance of Noah’s house."

Anonymous

Aha so true

Bill O'Reilly isn't the sharpest pencil in school.

Cheers for the share.

**snortle! chork!**
I honestly cannot think of anything to add to his diatribe. "faith good/science bad"

uh, ok, Bill. NOW will you shut up and go away?

Thanks for the chuckle. With that level of understanding, it makes it easier to understand how he can believe that cutting investments in the future and science will create the jobs of tomorrow.

These guys make dumb statements. It is inevitable. Where is the proof god made the planets and sun. Maybe the "Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy" has some truth to it.

i piss myself whenever i see that video :)

Funny stuff. Thanks for the laughs!

Bill O'Reilly makes perfect sense- if you are a desert nomad who lived 5,000 years ago. I hate to tell you Bill, but mankind has discovered a thing or 2 since then.

Today, I put my key in the ignition of the car and turned it. Guess what happened? IT STARTED! It must be magic.

I have a theory about Fox news. I really believe that it is an extravagant scientific experiment to prove that if you give any idiot a microphone and put them on TV, he or she will attract a large following. It was successful with O'Reilly so then they tried a raving lunatic- Glenn Beck- and they found- much to their dismay- that he was wildly successful.

No wait

Lol- The sky is blue- how did that happen? Who made it that way?

0.o My picture changed.

He represents a living argument for man inventing god to explain what he doesn't understand. Other people can explain it and understand it - but not billow - so it must be god.

qed. pdq. whaddever.

Was there a point here? Looks like I stumbled on a Liberal hate-in.

laughing at stupidity is not an exclusively conservative passtime :)

More like a reasonable laugh-in. When someone starts going "where did the moon come from?" like its a proof for god, we will laugh and laugh and then laugh some more.

So where DID the moon come from? There's no scientific consensus, you know, and every theory advanced has HUGE problems.

To save you the trouble typing something silly and disparaging, the degree on this end is in Physics.

The young earth was approximately twice the size it is now, when it was struck by a mars-size object. This explains the properties of moon rocks, the moons screwy orbit, and the vast majority of the scientific community accepts this theory. This theory has very few problems. Actually, only one. And there is a very good solution to that problem. I could really give a damn what your degree is in.

That's ONE theory. The problem with it, of course, is that an impact of sufficient force to dislodge that much mass would also be sufficient to propel most of the the ejecta beyond the remaining earth's gravitational effects. Proponents tend to gloss over the kinetics of the theory.

Very false. Go check the math. It is the prevailing theory accepted by the vaste majority of the scientific community.

Whatever. My degree's in physics, so what do I know?

Apparently not a whole helluva lot since you are denying the prevailing theory about the formation of the moon.

Who's denying what? I just pointed out the glaring problem with the theory. That's what people do in real science; postulate, critique, evaluate, revise or reformulate, etc.

And "deny" and "denial" when used vis-a-vis discussions of theory are religious terms, not scientific ones. People are welcome to their private religion, but it doesn't apply to critical discussions of a particular theory.

Alright, let me rephrase. You point out a "glaring problem" that the rest of the scientific community does not regard as a problem at all.

Actually, that problem is quite well known, but scientists tend to gloss over it because the rest of the theory explains what's otherwise a conundrum. That often happens in science. That's why what's generally accepted often chances over time.

200 or so years ago, everybody knew that combustion was caused by phlogiston. Anybody who pointed out problems with that generally accepted theory was ignored. The theory was a crock of crap, of course.

Then there's the breakthrough work on black holes done by Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar presented his findings in 1935, only to have them squashed by the scientific community led by British Astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington, championing generally accepted theory of the day. The results were so personally devastating that Chandrasekhar backed away from astrophysics for 30 years, working in fields like quantum physics and hydrodynamics.

Chandrasekhar received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for the work he had originally presented in 1935. Eddington's main contribution to science was to hold back the advancement of astrophysics for 50 years.

That's what happens when the generally accepted theory stifles those who identify weak spots and treat theory as sacrosanct dogma.

There's holes in every theory, but I don't think 'It's there so god made it' is anywhere near as plausible as a Mars-sized planet colliding with a young earth.

Well, every scientific paper starts out with a statement of assumptions, but the scientific method itself begins, as it must, with the a priori unstated assumption that everything occurs in a closed system in which everything that happens is the result of occurrences and forces that can be observed and measured directly or indirectly using the five senses. That automatically excludes attribution of anything to God or anything paranormal, not because they conclusively are not the causative agents, but because the scientific method precludes consideration of that possibility. Likewise, science cannot disprove the existence or influence of God because to do so would employ circular logic; a logic system cannot validate its own initial assumptions. The best science can do (and does) is to come up with a plausible explanation of observed phenomena excluding the possibility of external influence.

Whether you consider "god made it" plausible or not depends on whether you're willing to entertain the possibility of divine action or not. If you exclude that possibility, the concept of "god made it" is ludicrous. If you're open to the possibility of a creative force beyond the limits of the universe as we are able to perceive it, the spectrum of what's plausible becomes much broader.

I see exactly where you're coming from ,but religion has never appealed to me as an answer because of all the rituals and bull that goes with believing in such a force. If there is a god, I doubt he would be interested in the prayers of people that would seem like ants to him. In that case, the god as is percieved by the major religions is false and not a plausible explanation for me. I appreciate that there may be more we do not know, but science isn't about the what-ifs (well, you know what I mean) it's about what can be proven to be true and using those literal facts to find out more about the universe surrounding us.

Ah, yes. Let's appease an all-powerful divine spirit by chanting ritualistic prayers and dressing in funny looking hats... Not a whole lot of rational thinking in that.

But again, science is self-limiting with its a priori assumptions and must be or it wouldn't be science. Where problems in logical consistency occur is where people attribute more to science than the limitations of the closed system will support. If there is a God, it's entirely possible that the moon's there because he put it there, and there's no way to prove that one way or the other. Science provides a plausible alternative.

My degree's in physics, BTW, and I am in no way hostile to science. On the contrary, I spent my life practicing it. Thanks for a good discussion.

I agree, it's just I prefer logical answers than just sticking with the what-ifs. :)

Well, how come Saturn has 21 moons and we only have one? What makes Saturn (and for that matter Jupiter) so special?

With no chance of supporting life- what is the purpose of giving Sarurn and Jupiter so many moons. Even Pluto- not even a planet anymore- has a moon. We are not any better than Pluto. How did that happen? It must be a mystery.

Or maybe moon formation, and a gravitional relationship with it's planet isn't such an unusual thing. With 8 planets, and countless bodies (astriods, comets, planet's moons etc.) circling our one ho-hum star- one of about 200 billion in our one galaxy amoung billions- I think the argument that a moon circling a planet is unique or serves a specific purpose for that planet alone is a little bit more than a stretch. You as a Physicist must know that.

Bill O'Reilly is a fan of all obtuse ways of thinking about people and the world around him. He is so far gone from what is happening in the world and completely stuck in his old ways and philosophy that he couldn’t find his hind end with both hand and written instructions. He so confused about life in general he doesn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his back side.