There are two things that I hate to do - side with the religious right and spoil a good story against George W Bush. But I have to do both here.
The RR have been saying a lot about this video from TAM 2008 http://ift.tt/1r9Q2cD in which Neil deGrasse Tyson makes some derogatory remarks about a speech that GWB supposedly made in the week following 9/11. In particular they have been saying that the speech is an invention from beginning to end.
Now I don't think that Tyson made it up, but as far as I can see the speech is entirely mythical and so Tyson is mistaken.
The gist of Tyson's claim is that GWB, a couple of days after 9/11, tried to distinguish the US from the Islamic terrorists by saying "Our God is the God who named the stars". Tyson then goes on to say that two thirds of the stars that have names have Arabic names.
GWB did not make this speech, as far as I have been able to find out and did not utter the phrase mentioned. About two years later he quoted Isaiah about God naming the stars to the relatives of the victims of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. He did not use that phrase, said nothing about "our God" and it had nothing to do with Muslims.
Again, I am sure that Tyson made the remarks in good faith, but he was mistaken.
I am no great GWB fan, but I will give him that he pretty quickly and sharply called out the people who were attacking and abusing Muslims in the wake of 9/11 "that's not the America I know". It is unfair to suggest that he contributed to any of that if he didn't.
So I think that it is unfair that the video is still out there on his Hayden Planetarium page.
Also, it is hardly a good look for so called skeptics who all fell for the story hook, line and sinker.
The RR have been saying a lot about this video from TAM 2008 http://ift.tt/1r9Q2cD in which Neil deGrasse Tyson makes some derogatory remarks about a speech that GWB supposedly made in the week following 9/11. In particular they have been saying that the speech is an invention from beginning to end.
Now I don't think that Tyson made it up, but as far as I can see the speech is entirely mythical and so Tyson is mistaken.
The gist of Tyson's claim is that GWB, a couple of days after 9/11, tried to distinguish the US from the Islamic terrorists by saying "Our God is the God who named the stars". Tyson then goes on to say that two thirds of the stars that have names have Arabic names.
GWB did not make this speech, as far as I have been able to find out and did not utter the phrase mentioned. About two years later he quoted Isaiah about God naming the stars to the relatives of the victims of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. He did not use that phrase, said nothing about "our God" and it had nothing to do with Muslims.
Again, I am sure that Tyson made the remarks in good faith, but he was mistaken.
I am no great GWB fan, but I will give him that he pretty quickly and sharply called out the people who were attacking and abusing Muslims in the wake of 9/11 "that's not the America I know". It is unfair to suggest that he contributed to any of that if he didn't.
So I think that it is unfair that the video is still out there on his Hayden Planetarium page.
Also, it is hardly a good look for so called skeptics who all fell for the story hook, line and sinker.
via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1r9Q2cH
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