That was priceless. Olberman's just sat and stared and put up his hands and shrugged in disbelief that anyone in this age could make such a stupid statement. And then grunted "moon make gravity".LOL

I feel sooo vindicated that stuff like this is making national cable news. He even said before the clip "Silverman cleaned his clock".

I am not angry at all. You have to remember that this is a pressure situation under O'Reilly's trained ringmaster circus show and time was limited. Media, both left and right are trained to set up their guest as a punching bag.

He skipped that step because the end was important too, which is everyone argues the gap.

I do think it would have been better to say, "Would you buy the same "tide" argument if someone were arguing for Allah or Vishnu?"

The gravity issue while important, misses the end goal of pointing out that the believer has an agenda regardless of scientific fact.

FYI FOLKS, if someone can post last night's Colbert Report clip here, he bitch slaps O'Reilly and has Neil Degrees Tyson in on the joke. I fell out of my chair.

agreed. point taken.

http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/thu-january-6-2011-ronald-depinho

    I'll look for the clip ! Anyway, I saw the Colbert Report every day this week except for last night. 

       I think that he was so stuned by the stupidity of O'Reily.

Later in the interview when Silverman says he does'nt know why so many unbeliever (doubters) are in church, O'Reilly pounces on it like this proves his tidal point.

"You don't know, you don't know," he cries in delight.

This argument from complexity/ignorance based on no evidence is standard fare from more brainless christians who insist anything we can't explain proves some definite alternative reality for which no evidence exists.

And what's with the bullshit about 2 per cent atheists in the USA? Surely the entire country can't be godly, can it? I thought you have 15 or 20 per cent at least.

Below is what Silverman SHOULD'VE said!! For cryin out loud we learn this stuff in elementary school/junior high!! He could've DESTROYED O'Reilly if he simply told him this:

Tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's surface. While most people associate tides specifically with the ocean, the entire planet is subject to tidal forces, as is the atmosphere, and in fact all celestial bodies are influenced by tidal forces. The large volume of water on the Earth has made the actions of the tides particularly notable and interesting. 

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-the-tides-work.htm

You missed my point earlier. Don't get too upset over this. First off shows like this have hosts trained to be ringmasters and they are not going to give the guest any real time to make a point. Their goal is to set you up.

But the bigger point you seem to miss is that the fans of shows like this will ignore science. So the better approach would be to say, "Would you buy your own argument if a Muslim said, "The tide goes in, the tide goes out, therefore Allah exists".

Only after that, can you say, the gravity of the moon is the universal evidence we all accept and it does not point to one god over another.

NEVER expect any circus show like this to be a real formal debate. I thing David did quite well and considering the time he had to make his point, he did a great job. And it doesn't matter if you win this one battle, the important thing is that it brings science and atheism out in the open more and more. THAT goal is worth going through any petty sideshow O crappy wants to set up.

Not to mention BOTH Olberman and Cobert jumped all over O'Reilly the next day.

Dont worry about "gotcha" media, the bigger goal is to bring attention to science and reality. Cheap stunts get figured out over time.

Yeah you have to consider how stupid that is and the shock of such stupidity in front of you kind of paralyzes you for a second. It's like a poisonous snake bite of ignorance! My question if any one would care to answer is do you think it's all a play or a performance or does Bill O really believe what he is saying? " The Colbert run down of the situation was priceless! Colbert is as close to god as you can  get.

 Yah, I have to go with the idea that O'Rilley shot him self in the foot. Of course, in his world, he has elevated foot shooting to an art form. The only thing being that Silverman brought a pea shooter and it was not even pointed in the right general direction.

Seriously, if you are going to go on a modern TV show, then you should be prepared for what you are going into. Sadly enough, this would involve watching a few episodes of the show but even so, it is what has to be done.

In all honesty, Michael Behe turns up on TV all the time and he seems to be ready to take on all challengers. As a community, we need to be able to do the same. It should not be that hard to be able to deal with some challenge when the deal is scheduled weeks in advance.

 What? By being unprepared and not having an answer to stupid crap?

Seriously, pull the Colbert clip up. He says that he can't explain the tides. Then Niel Degrasse Tyson shows up and says “I can explain the tides”

 OK, here is how to pwn O'Reily:

He is not all that hard to pwn.

I think my jaw actually dropped in shock. I also realized at that moment that any scientific explanation would be a waste of time.

    Yes it was, I only wish that the people that criticize people like him,would take the time to listen to other people's opinion of the world around them. He seems like a intelligent human-being.    rock on !!!

Partially. We have seen from the clips, that Bill uses that argument over and over. It should not have been hard to anticipate and have a response for. However, the whole interview was Bill throwing batshit crazy arguments at him over and over and the best that Dave could do was choke out some bit about Thor that Bill steam rolled over.

Really, at one point, Bill threw out the idea that atheists are a mere 1% of the population. I would tend to think that Dave would have been aware of the real numbers that are out there. However, instead of trying to counter that, he let Bill continue by saying that 1% of the people are insulting 80%. Um, where did the remaining 19% go?

I woulda laughed my ass off if Manson hopped over the table and bent Bill over lol. Funny thing tho, I'm not really a Manson fan at all but he did seem way smarter than Bill.

Sexual harassment goes out, lawsuit comes in, always a jackass.

That's an insult to all other smartasses... like me for example!

I don't know about that, Bill seemed to be asking valid questions to me. Sure manson answered them well for the most part. But the whole thing seemed rather neutral from Bills end. It didn't come across as attacking manson to me. It more looked like he was just giving Manson time to justify things which people may be confused about.  Maybe i'm just socially retarded but it just didn't come across as anyone handing anyone their ass. Just questions and answers, nothing more.

Bill may ask valid questions. The problem is he doesn't except the answers he gets if he doesn't agree with them. He is a dumb ass and though I'm not a Manson fan, he's actually a pretty smart guy. He did mention as well he started out as a journalist and he in fact did ( I'm huge into music so I research everything about musicians). On the other hand Bill has a job to do and that is to "try' to make people look dumb. He does it all the time or at least tries to. He does the same song and game with everyone from Bill Maher to republican christians, which is what I have heard Bill say he is. He's really not as smart as he portrays himself to be. He gets a script to read just like an actor or actress.The flip side is that he gets educated people on his show and tries to tear them apart. Hence making himself look like the ass and he does a pretty good job of it quite a bit.

 2:02 

face worth 10000 explanations!

What you're trying to say is O'Reilly is a brainless idiot for not knowing how tides work and even more moronic for trying to make some stupid supernatural conncection between a mythical Arab god, Jesus, and the tides.