Bill O'Reilly on science: Why is Earth the only planet with a moon?
As my blogmate Jim Rainey has frequently pointed out, Fox News has its own unique view of the world, where the facts rarely get in the way, most recently in the way Fox pollster Frank Luntz used a strange brand of faux science to find a panel of people unimpressed by President Obama's recent State of the Union address. But when it comes to seeing the world through the wrong end of a telescope, no one tops Bill O'Reilly, who has been the butt of a thousand jokes after confronting an atheist on his show with irrefutable evidence of the existence of God--using as his evidence the fact that the tides come in and the tides go out. I mean, O'Reilly said with great certainty, who else could possibly be controlling that?
As any scientist could tell you, it's the moon that controls the tides. So Papa Bear has taken to the airwaves again to pursue a new wrinkle in his faux science agenda. He now acknowledges that the tides might indeed be controlled by the moon. But so what? As he says: "How'd the moon get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that? And Mars doesn't have it. Venus doesn't have it. How come?"
Actually, as any amateur astronomer knows, Jupiter has lots of moons, 63 in all, several of which you can see through a good pair of binoculars. One of them, Ganymede, is actually larger than Mercury. Saturn has 62 moons. Uranus has 27 moons. And hey, Bill, Mars actually has two moons of its own, that were discovered in 1877, long before even Roger Ailes was born. As far as I know, there's no evidence that either of them are made of green cheese either. I'm beginning to think that O'Reilly might have slept through quite a few of his fifth-grade science classes. But he sure is certain in his beliefs. Here, watch for yourself:
--Patrick Goldstein
Lol what happened to the Big Bang? Oh and why don't the other planets have life? Are we lucky? Yes we are extremely lucky for water to be able to be in the state that it is on this planet. It REALLY IS ALL LUCK. You uneducated, small minded "pinhead". Go to Bosley and get some plugs.
Posted by: JWM | February 05, 2011 at 08:27 AM
Yes, we are lucky for water. If you want to talk about something magical and spiritual, look at water. It has properties that give life. It is dissimilar to anything else in the world. It is the only thing on our plant that lets us survive, without water no basic processes would continue. Go read a book and fix yours. Its boring.
Posted by: JWM | February 05, 2011 at 08:29 AM
What happened to "check the facts"?
Posted by: Vicky Todd | February 05, 2011 at 10:16 AM
@Andrew Exactly what I was thinking.
Goldstein, c'mon, don't be cheap. When you actually listen to the video you can tell he didn't mean other planets don't have moons. There was a long pause between his moon statement and him saying "Why doesn't Mars have that." You're choosing to ignore commonly understood vocal cues and misrepresenting his speech in print in order to advance your hate of Fox News.
Like Andrew said, he's talking about the conglomeration of factors, including the moon's influence of the tide, that have come together to form life on earth. That IS pretty unique.
Posted by: Mike F | February 05, 2011 at 02:56 PM
As a Christian, I would prefer that none of the Fox "News" personalities be called upon to make arguments on God's behalf. Because as O'Reilly shows here, their disregard for (or ignorance of) the facts and logical thinking that is displayed nightly in discussions of political matters would likely carry over into their theological remarks. A lot of what O'Reilly and his cohorts say over the air is either misleading or false--and oftentimes it's just plain mean. Because Fox didn't hire these folks for their intellect, it's hard to know if they're willfully lying or if they just don't know any better. In any event, they are poor spokespersons for God.
Posted by: Bob Newsman | February 05, 2011 at 03:21 PM
Another brain-dead retarded neo-nazi-christa-republican who tries to use his ignorance of the way the universe works to try to demand that it is evidence of his imaginary friends.
People like this are truly the most pathetic organisms on the planet. They constantly deny facts because they conflict with their delusions.
Him and those with the same mental illness as him have been responsible for more human suffering in the world than anything else. Countless millions upon millions upon millions of deaths throughout all of history.
It is truly shameful that we as humans have not sought to eradicate this infection people call faith just as we would any other horrible and wicked disease that has plundered our population over the years.
But no.. They cry of their "rights" their "oppression" their "need for respect" their demand for "immunity of their actions".
And we always back down.. Because we know.. We know what happens when they don't get their way.. They go crazy and start killing everything in sight.
Where was the mercy for their victims? Who stood up and said NO YOU CANT DO THIS as people were being burned at the stake? Who stopped the crusades? Who stopped them for mentally torturing people to the point they took their own lives to escape because they had just been brainwashed to bad that they actually began to believe they were as evil and as sick as the "religious" had been telling them they were?
Where was the mercy for those?
We have RICO laws where an entire "criminal gang" can be prosecuted for the actions of one member.
There is no statute of limitations on murder.
So what about the statute of limitations on mass genocide? When did it expire? When did the religious get their slate wiped clean?
Why are we not prosecuting these people for their contributions to the most bloody and vicious criminal organizations to have ever existed?!
I'm ready for a new holy war.. A war between the "self-proclaimed holy" and those who can think. It's high time the ignorant and delusional be driven from politics and positions of power and placed with people actually qualified and educated enough to handle the positions. People who actually don't rely on conversations with imaginary people in their heads.
How old is the earth? 4000 years old you say? Talking Snake? Rib woman? Boat with every animal in two's? NO WAY IN HELL YOU ARE GOING TO BE IN CONTROL OF ANYTHING. What color of straight jacket would you like?
They are a disease and should be considered as such.
Let us just hope that cancer or aids never learns to plea for mercy or demand respect.. Based upon our actions in the past.. I'm convinced it would be awarded to them.
Posted by: All The Worlds A Stage | February 05, 2011 at 03:45 PM
Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos (1). Google is a wonderful tool, how about using it before you post something so completely ignorant. How did the sun get there? "We believe that the sun formed from a big cloud of gas and dust. The cloud was dark and cold, and its gravity caused it to fall together. The gas that collected at the center got hot from all the other gas falling on it. When nearly all the gas and dust had fallen together, the center became very hot and very dense — our sun. Some of the leftover gas and dust going in orbit around this baby sun became the planets."(2). How did the moon get there? "According to the "giant impact" theory, the young Earth had no moon. At some point in Earth's early history, a rogue planet, larger than Mars, struck the Earth in a great, glancing blow. Instantly, most of the rogue body and a sizable chunk of Earth were vaporized. The cloud rose to above 13,700 miles (22,000 kilometers) altitude, where it condensed into innumerable solid particles that orbited the Earth as they aggregated into ever larger moonlets, which eventually combined to form the moon."(3) There, with 30 seconds of searching I've answered O'Reilly's moronic questions. Stop being idiots and do 5 minutes of research. I cannot believe how idiotic people are even when they've got the sum of all human knowledge at their finger tips.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Mars
(2) http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4868
(3) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0714_040714_moonfacts.html
Posted by: Andrew N | February 05, 2011 at 05:28 PM
He didn't say Earth is the only planet with a moon. He didn't even imply it. He asked why we have THE Moon. Why is it orbiting Earth instead of Mars or Venus?
You people need to grow up.
Posted by: SubjectAlpha | February 05, 2011 at 05:30 PM
What saddens me the most is that you ALL have access to all the information you could ever want, and yet you choose to make up your own answers to questions without checking your facts.
The truth is, we have no way of know exactly how the moon got there (I don't know anyone who was around then) but we do have some theories.
Read up:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0714_040714_moonfacts.html
It took me less than a minute to find a bunch of information on the topic. What pisses me off if that he had time to research, and he obviously didn't. Instead he used the opportunity to tell us we were idiots for not blindly believing what he believes.
I don't understand how anyone can respect a man who refuses to learn more about a subject before discussing it in front of such a huge audience.
Posted by: Tuana | February 05, 2011 at 06:32 PM
First let it be said that I am an Evangelical Christian, a former minister and I have a BA in Bible from Messiah College. You do not need Genesis or Creationism to be a Christian. There is a Reformation doctrine called Sola Christos. It means all you need to believe in is Christ. That said, we can now put it behind us and have some science.
Early in the formation of the Earth the planet was hit by another planet about he size of Mars. It wasn't Mars, but it became part of Earth. the junk thrown up by that humungous impact collected together into the Moon.
Other planets have moons: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune each have moon. Mars has two tiny ones. Other stars have planets orbiting around them. So moons are really pretty ordinary.
Posted by: Charles | February 05, 2011 at 06:38 PM