(I'm sure this following piece penned by Juan Cole is in response to the awful debate (if you can call it that) that Nye had with Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Meet The Press this past week Sunday. I could not tell who was more awful, Blackburn, or David Gregory, who just sat there and never challenged any of her erroneous statements. It least Cole saw the humor in it, and I love the Greenwald joke. :) )
Satire by Juan Cole:
"David Gregory’s Meet the Press today hosted a debate between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on whether gravity is just a theory.
“Sure,” Gohmert said, “things fall down all the time. But that doesn’t mean gravity is a law. Look at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s still there after hundreds of years. Things don’t always fall down.”
Nye pointed out that Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity in the 17th century and it is settled science.
Gohmert challenged Nye’s certainty. “The cultists who tout science always speak as though we know for sure that scientific discoveries are true. Gravity has only been theorized for a couple hundred years. It’s too early to tell. How much money do they want us to waste on suspension bridges and other expensive technology aimed at keeping things from falling down, on the basis of a theory?”
Nye tore off his bow-tie and began chewing on it in frustration.
“Wasn’t it an apple that hit Newton on the head?” Gohmert asked. “Well, I’ve read the Bible and I know that an apple was used to tempt Eve. Maybe the Serpent was just tempting Newton with a secular humanist theory.”
Nye said, “What?”
“Besides,” Gohmert went on, “we all saw that movie ‘Gravity.’ Obviously there’s no gravity in outer space. So if the theory doesn’t work everywhere, there must be something wrong with it.”
“The law of gravity says,” Nye replied, “that ‘any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.’ Gravity works in deep outer space, it is just that bodies there are distant from the earth. And in ‘Gravity’ they were just falling around the earth, in the grip of its gravity.”
Moderator David Gregory smirked. “That’s a lot of verbiage there, Bill. If you can’t explain something clearly, maybe it’s because there’s something wrong with the theory.”
Gohmert angrily interrupted Gregory. “Besides, we all know that Muslims believe in gravity. That should make you suspicious of it, right there.”
Nye turned to Gregory. “How can you call yourself a journalist? This is a carnival with a bearded lady exhibit!”
Gregory shrugged. “Next you’ll be saying Glenn Greenwald is a journalist. I am not an activist. I don’t know whether gravity is universal. I let both sides tell their story.”
“That’s not a ‘side’! He’s just mouthing nonsense! It doesn’t even make any sense.”
Gohmert pounded the table. “This whole gravity thing is just a way for scientists to get taxpayers’ hard-won money away from them. NASA wouldn’t get all that funding for rocket fuel if people realized that ‘gravity’ is just a theory.”
Gregory turned to the camera and smiled. “There you have it, folks. Next week on ‘Meet the Press:’ A quarter of Americans think the sun goes around the earth. Could they be right? To explain, we’ll be joined by a homeless man who says he is possessed by the spirit of the ancient astronomer Ptolemy.”
Source for Cole: http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/science-gohmert-g … avity.html
Thoughtful commentary on Sunday's Meet The Press exchange from Katie McDonough of Salon: http://www.salon.com/2014/02/17/meet_the_press_pr … se_debate/
@Barnery, you’re preaching to the choir here, why we let these money making political entities withhold paying its taxes under the pretense of “faith based” is beyond me. Anybody who disagrees should see RJ’s latest post.
Here’s a tongue-in-cheek response to Cole’s piece that’s well done:
“Yeah I saw that episode with Gomert and Nye. It wasn’t nearly as good though as the debate Gregory hosted the week before between Jesus and Tom Perkins asking the question, “Should we show compassion towards the dispossessed, or hold them down firmly on the ground while billionaires urinate on them?” My favorite part was when Jesus said it was easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Perkins accused Jesus of class warfare and Gregory agreed that we would tear the country apart with such inflammatory discourse; Gregory then asked Jesus to tone it down with Perkins barking over him as he demanded a retraction and called Jesus a Stalinist.
Perkins then regaled Jesus with a lecture over the supreme justice and fairness of the Roman political and social system under which he lived, instructing him that the arrogance of the Roman senatorial class, including their frequent pillaging of provinces, was justified since they were the Empire’s job creators. When Jesus pointed out that many worked under the lash without pay until they suffered a lingering nasty death, Perkins denied this was in any way damaging to the stability of the empire, despite recent major rebellions in Sicily and Italy (led by Spartacus), while Gregory sat complacently by without challenging any of Perkins’ assertions or putting them in their larger contexts.
“They just need to work harder in those silver mines and quarries and pull themselves up by their sandal straps”, Perkins continued. When Jesus pointed out most were unshod and went barefoot, Gregory accused Jesus of going off point, prostrated himself at the feet of Perkins, and begged forgiveness for his lack of fairness to the multi-billionaire. Perkins made an odd face as Gregory drooled while kissing the crimson stripe of his toga praetexta. The debate ended with Perkins washing his hands in a silver bowl after having his lictors haul Jesus off to an uncertain fate. “There’s no notion of social justice so deep that it can’t be beaten out of a man with a few rods and an ax”, Perkins was caught to say on an open mic.
Next up, an exclusive interview with anarchist Rand Paul arguing that guvmint telling us which side of the road to drive on is tantamount to tyranny, with Dancing Dave asking the vital question, “Attila the Hun type tyranny or Caligula type tyranny” -by GRUMPYWITHOUTCOFFEE
source: http://www.juancole.com/2014/02/science-gohmert-g … avity.html
But jokes aside - is that true that there are people denying gravity? That's a fake, isn't it?