Why do viewers of Fox News consistently display less knowledge of reality than those who get their news from any other source? Probably because they are misinformed on a consistent basis by the Great and Powerful Foxniks, that’s why, and I don’t just mean about political issues, but simple basic stuff, like what causes ocean tides.
Bill O’Reilly gives us another classic example of the type of ignorance, intentional or otherwise, of which Fox is capable, when he claimed in a recent attack on atheists that we don’t know what causes ocean tides to rise and fall. In the man’s own words:
“I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam,” he said. “In my opinion — alright? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.”
You can watch him make this nonsensical point here:
It seems O’Reilly isn’t as smart as 6th graders. As Bugs Bunny used to say, what a maroon. We have known that the tides of the earth’s oceans are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon since at least the times of Galileo and Isaac Newton (who, by the way Bill, was a Christian).
Newton devoted the period from August 1684 to spring 1686 to this task, and the result became one of the most important and influential works on physics of all times, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) (1687), often shortened to Principia Mathematica or simply “the Principia.”
In Book I of Principia, Newton opened with definitions and the three laws of motion now known as Newton’s laws Eric Weisstein’s World of Physics (laws of inertia, action and reaction, and acceleration proportional to force). Book II presented Newton’s new scientific philosophy which came to replace Cartesianism. Finally, Book III consisted of applications of his dynamics, including an explanation for tides and a theory of lunar motion.
Maybe O’Reilly should just ask the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research:
The key to tides is the varying strength of the Moon’s gravitational pull on different parts of the globe. The Moon pulls most on the water nearest to it, creating a high tide bulge of water. On the opposite side of the planet, about 7,926 miles (1,2760 km) away, the Moon’s pull is much weaker and the water is left to form another high tide bulge. Low tides are found halfway between the highs. The rotating Earth carries us through these regions of high and low water.
Then again the Office of Naval Researchthey are a part of Big Guvmint’s bailout of money grubbing, lying scientists who are always trying to trick us out of our hard earned tax dollars, even if these scientists are a part of the Department of Defense. Maybe Eric Cantor and John Boehner can get ONR’s budget slashed for offending Christians who still believe the Earth is flat, that Isaac Newton was a kook and that God is the Supreme Micromanager.
Or maybe Bill O’Reilly should go back to 6th grade and learn what he apparently forgot or missed when he should have been paying attention to his teacher. Then again, maybe Bill O is just a shill and a con artist who follows his Bosses’ directions to misinform people about science:
In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the “veracity of climate change data” and ordering the network’s journalists to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.”
The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.”
Because if O’Reilly can convince people that what your science teacher taught you about gravity is all wrong, how much easier can it be to convince the gullible among Fox’s audience that global climate change is just a [choose one or more of the following]:
(1) Myth,
2) Hoax,
3) Scam or
(4) all of the above.
