Via BSAlert.com:

Bill Nye, the harmless children’s edu-tainer known as “The Science Guy,” managed to offend a select group of adults in Waco, Texas at a presentation, when he suggested that the moon does not emit light, but instead reflects the light of the sun.

As even most elementary-school graduates know, the moon reflects the light of the sun but produces no light of its own.

But don’t tell that to the good people of Waco, who were “visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence,” according to the Waco Tribune.

Nye was in town to participate in McLennan Community College’s Distinguished Lecture Series. He gave two lectures on such unfunny and adult topics as global warming, Mars exploration, and energy consumption.

But nothing got people as riled as when he brought up Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

The lesser light, he pointed out, is not a light at all, but only a reflector.

At this point, several people in the audience stormed out in fury. One woman yelled “We believe in God!” and left with three children, thus ensuring that people across America would read about the incident and conclude that Waco is as nutty as they’d always suspected.

This story originally appeared in the Waco Tribune, but the newspaper has mysteriously pulled its story from the online version, presumably to avoid further embarassment.

Earlier today I posted an image that ranked the states by average IQ (Note: This IQ data is a hoax – do not quote or use it). Texas weighed in at #40 with an average IQ of 92 (to be fair, it’s tied with Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, and North Dakota.) At least Texas is not Mississippi which delivered the stunningly low score of 85. The IQ test is designed so that 100 is an average score with anything above 120 as “superior” intelligence and anything below 80 as “diminished capacity.” Mississippi, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and South Carolina fall into the 80-90 range which is described as “dullness.”

Obviously, not all 23.5 million Texans have an IQ of 92, but looking at aggregate state data does show some surprising figures. According to the US Census 2006 data set, if we map the population in states with average IQ of less than 100, it accounts for 162.4 million people, or 54.4% of our population. If we include the 14.5 million at 100, then that pushes the percentage to 59.2%. I guess the average has skewed from the test’s intended as you would expect 50% of the population to be at or above 100 and the same below. Oh well. There are clearly all sorts of ways to calculate this and I’m sure some statistics whiz could make it all balance, but on its face, at an aggregate level, it tells a bad tale. Too bad the IQ data backing it is all bogus.

Concepts like “intelligent design” and teaching religious myths as fact are not helping advance the cause. I mean, everyone knows the moon is made of cheese, right? Make that, mysteriously radioactive, glowing cheese…..