Creationists Demand Equal Time on "Cosmos"

Haha no:

Danny Faulkner of Answers In Genesis and the Creation Museum appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday to criticize Cosmos for not providing airtime for Creationism adherents. When Mefferd asked if Cosmos will “ever give a Creationist any time,” Faulkner responded by lamenting that “Creationists aren’t even on the radar screen for them, they wouldn’t even consider us plausible at all.” 

Nor would most sane people consider them "plausible."  But we think "Cosmos" host Neil deGrasse Tyson previously addressed Dim Danny's point when he said, "Bullshit!"  “You don’t talk about the spherical Earth with NASA, and then say let’s give equal time to the flat Earthers.  Plus, science is not there for you to cherry pick.”

Across The Universe

Here are a few excerpted "cosmic" numbers from Michael West, Director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory (which segues into a reminder for those of us in the U.S. to watch Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos" tonight at 9 p.m. EDT - check local listings):

8.5 million: The number of people who watched the premiere Sunday of “Cosmos: A Space­time Odyssey” on Fox and affiliated networks. 

13.3 million: The number of people who watched the premiere of “Resurrection,” ABC’s new drama about loved ones mysteriously returning from the dead, which aired at the same time.  

17.9 million: The number of people who watched CBS’s sitcom “The Big Bang Theory” last week. [snip]  

100 billion: The estimated number of human beings who have ever lived on Earth. 

400 billion: The estimated number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. 

38 percent: The share of atoms in the human body that are heavier than hydrogen and hence were made inside stars. [snip] 

3.5 percent: The amount of funding for NASA compared with that of the U.S. military in President Obama’s proposed 2015 budget. 

7.3 billion: Dollar amount in the president’s proposed 2015 budget for the National Science Foundation, which funds research in astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, physics and other sciences. 

12.9 billion: The cost in dollars of the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, christened in November. 

26 percent: The share of American adults who think that the sun revolves around the Earth, according to a February study by the National Science Foundation.

We're very small in all of this, and our ignorance only makes us smaller.