Sense About Science, a UK charity that has a membership of over 5,000 scientists, released it’s year-end Celebrities are Idiots list wherein they not so directly call certain famous people morons for making unscientific claims.
For example, they out Michele Bachmann who claims the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation when in fact “there is no evidence that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation or that there are dangerous consequences.” What may cause mental retardation, however, is Michele Bachmann’s genes.
The group sighed at Simon Cowell’s claim that an iv of Vitamin C, B12 and magnesium helps him feel younger and healthier and also at Gisele Bundchen’s statement that sunscreen is a synthetic poison.
They also shake their heads at Snooki who once claimed “that the ocean is salty because of all the whale sperm.” Clearly that woman had one too many balls shoved in her mouth.
Then there’s Bill O’Reilly who said “In my opinion — all right? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.”
Turns out you can. With science! Otherwise known as the Devil’s algebra to Bill O’Reilly.
“I’m happy to take up Bill’s challenge — it’s simply the pull of the moon’s gravity on the Earth that produces the tides,” wrote Lintott. “The Earth’s solid surface is stretched by the moon’s pull, but the oceans are free to move more dramatically, producing the familiar two tides a day. Nothing too complicated about that, although it did take Isaac Newton’s theories to get the explanation clear.”
Whatever. Bill will just shout “YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN IT!” at Isaac Newton until Isaac realizes he’s right.
