Bill Maher and Bill Nye discuss science and faith.

Here are a few excerpts that I found interesting.

Maher. jokingly: "You're quoting facts, how much do we really know about facts? "

Nye laughs.

Maher: "But that's the problem, is that facts themselves have become subject to debate, and this must drive you fucking nuts."

Nye shakes his head despair and growls his frustration: "No it really is troubling because you...

Maher: "Well you are used to explaining things to children, explain to Republicans right now."

Audience explodes in laughter.

Then a few minutes later.

Maher: "You should give religion the hard time. I mean I read that you were in, I think it was, Texas and you quoted Genesis. Something like God made two great lights, the sun and the moon, and you pointed out to the crowd that the moon, of course, is not a light itself it's just reflecting the light from the sun. And they threw a shit fit and stormed out of the room."

Nye: "A woman grabbed her kids by the wrist and took them out. Which was kind of cool, but also troubling."

Maher: "But you cannot see that and not know that religion is the enemy of science, and when people say we can reconcile science and faith, NO we can't!"

You know I think if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that this last statement, as upsetting and provocative as it is, is also true.

I do not always feel sorry for Michael Steele, but watching him squirm during this segment kind of made me wish he would have stood up and said, "Fuck it I'm a Democrat now!"

By the way just in case you are one of those who do not think that religion has been used to dumb down our country and politics, just take a gander at this story:

On Tuesday, a bill that would have created an honorary (i.e. unpaid) American Science Laureate position to "travel around the country to inspire future scientists" was sent packing by House Republicans after an influential conservative organization lost their minds over it and wrote a bunch of angry letters. Their reason for opposing the measure? Obviously, that would be the vast liberal conspiracy to promote policies based on the extensive scientific evidence of climate change. 

In a letter to House leadership, Science reported on Friday, Larry Hart of the American Conservative Union wrote that an Obama-appointed Science Laureate would give the president a yes man of sorts on environmental policy, someone “who will share his view that science should serve political ends, on such issues as climate change and regulation of greenhouse gases." It seems this is a fear injected into the House by Hart himself, as the previously uncontroversial bill had broad bipartisan support, even from Rep. Lamar Smith, who wanted to put the process of scientific peer review under governmental oversight. Smith, a Republican, is the chair of the House Science Committee. He introduced the bill with democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren. 

 A staffer for another Republican supporter of the bill, Representative Randy Hultgren, reminded Science that the Science Laureate position is primarily aimed at getting children interested in science. Which, come on, we all should be able to agree on this. "There would be no taxpayer money involved," the staffer said, adding, "this bill is simply a chance to show our children that discovery science is important and that science can be an exciting and rewarding career.”

What has this got to do with religion you might ask? Well religion creates the foundation for denying facts which challenge belief, whether it be belief in Creationism, or belief that Climate Change is a bunch of hooey.

Of course it is getting harder to blame the religious conservatives for wanting to make people suspicious of science, especially since science is making this quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson,“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on,”  more prescient with every new discovery.

Such as this one:  

Scientists have discovered a 'cosmic factory' for producing the building blocks of life, amino acids, in research published today in the journal Nature Geoscience. 

The researchers suggest that this process provides another piece to the puzzle of how life was kick-started on Earth, after a period of time between 4.5 and 3.8 billion years ago when the planet had been bombarded by comets and meteorites. 

Oil and water, science and religion, Sarah Palin and intelligence, some things simply do NOT go together.