If you took the time to dig through the history of this blog, which would make you a weird stalker, you'd find that my opinion of Bill O'Reilly has gradually declined after I initially liked him. The following situation continues that trend.
I saw this O'Reilly opinion column. It references a controversial Katie Couric CBS Evening News segment where they let some nutjob named Rohrbaugh on the air (a father who tragically lost his son in the Columbine school shootings) and he said some really ignorant shit about how teaching evolution leads to violence, echoing the moronic thoughts of disgraced criminal former congressman Tom DeLay. Rohrbaugh also made some anti-abortion comments.
Katie Couric was criticized for letting this guy on her show to spew nonsense, and she responded on her blog that she was aware some people would find Rohrbaugh's views repugnant. O'Reilly rants about how it is ridiculous that someone like Couric would call a pro-life view "repugnant." Katie's blog then posted this spineless retort that gave a forum for more anti-evolution bullshit.
Katie Couric and Bill O'Reilly are giants in the media, and they're both pathetic here. What is repugnant about this guy's statement is his anti-evolution ignorance. There is no evidence that widespread acceptance of evolution is harmful to a society, and in fact there is significant support for the idea that rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society****. How does this not get mentioned? I thought that responsible reporters, especially those who claim "no spin," are supposed to give you the relevant facts. "Fair and balanced" means that where there is a reasonable debate, you present both sides, not that you just give air time to insane people who hold views with no basis in reality. Couric might as well give 90 seconds for someone to tell us all that the Earth is flat and that 2+2=7.
Of course the reason they avoid stating the simple truth that evolution is as much a fact as gravity is that they don't want to offend the millions of zealot fundamentalists who refuse to accept reality. Those ignorant masses are a significant base of their viewers (or in O'Reilly's case, the vast majority) and they must be appeased.
**** - update: Mario points out that the study I linked to is complete bullshit. Rather than delete the mention of it, I'll leave it linked as a testament to my own shame. Also, shame on Skeptic Magazine.
another update: I was of course being over-the-top reactionary in my first update. The study has some merit, the problem is if you use it to support conclusions it doesn't actually support. It definitely offers some evidence to refute the absurd assertion that teaching evolution leads to societal ills. It doesn't, as I initially suggested, offer much support for the idea that "rejection of evolution and widespread belief in God is harmful to society." A fine but important distinction that might have gotten lost in my "complete bullshit" dismisal. Also I'm doing this update in a hurry, so I might have gotten something wrong here too.
2 comments:
Sadly that linked study is garbage. If you read it, you'll see all his "correlation" analyses aren't "analyses" at all; in fact, not a single statistic is supported. More criticism here. I do wonder if a real analysis would turn up these kinds of results. I know there are some real papers out there studying things like the effect of gay marriage laws on divorce rates, etc. that don't support the idea that civil liberalization is bad in the ways republicans say it is, but I haven't read that stuff in a while. Also, little anecdotes like the the fact that atheists are statistically underrepresented in US prisons, have the lowest acceptance of torture, etc. Although I think this would really be one of the weaker arguments against religion in any case, if you need to have some statistician tell you that religion leads people to do insane shit like go on crusades or blow up buses full of people, you're an idiot.
PS-haha, I'm linking to a Christian blog on your website. What irony!
Bill O'Reilly hates you, and he hates your got-damned freedom of speech.
See?
Post a Comment