By now you’re probably familiar with the tide-goes-in-tide-goes-out memes. If so, skip to “What you might not know”. If you’ve been under a rock, here’s a quick description. So, David Silverman (the president of the American Atheists) is appearing on the talk show of Fox News conservative-but-doesn’t-admit-it ridiculous blowhard Bill O’Reilly. Here’s what happens (video on the right, transcript below, relevant bit starts at 1:50)
One poll shows some 40 percent of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president.
O’Reilly: I’ll tell you why it’s not a scam. In my opinion. Alright? Tide goes in, tide goes out, never a miscommunication. You [points at Silverman] can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in…
Silverman [after shocked face and stunned silence]:…tide goes in, tide goes out?
O’Reilly: See, the water of the tide goes in and it goes out Mr Silverman, it always comes in
Silverman: Ah, maybe [it’s] Thor from the top of Mt Olympus who’s making the tides go in and out?!
O’Reilly: No-no, but you can’t explain that.
This clip actually spawned TWO internet memes. The first meme was the “you can’t explain that”. It was mocked on Colbert who brought in Neil deGrasse Tyson to “explain that”. Numerous posters were made with O’Reilly’s face (“bread goes in, toast comes out — you can’t explain that!” and my favourite “I speak into a camera and people give me money — you can’t explain that!”). O’Reilly has also posted another video where he defends himself, saying the “pinheads” are desperate since if we can explain the tides we still can’t explain where the moon came from, why Earth has a moon and Mars doesn’t (it has more than one) and where “it all” came from. The second meme was Silverman’s shocked face which took off with people turning it into cartoons, fractals etc.
All of this was amusing but that’s not the real story.
What you might not know
This Sunday, I listened to David Silverman give a 1 hour interview on the Irreligiosophy podcast. Here’s the link where you can download the mp3 (currently their site is down for some reason but should be back up soon). He explained what happened.
He got sat down with O’Reilly for the pre-show interview. During this, he realised O’Reilly is actually a very smart and informed guy. He knew the issues, he knew about the American Atheists, about their historic founding by Madalyn Murray O’Hair and all her doings, he knew about Ellen Johnson and so forth.
And then the cameras rolled. And at the point where O’Reilly asked the tides question Silverman was shocked because O’Reilly’s whole schtick became apparent. He realised that he could not win against O’Reilly on his show because this person does not exist. He’s a work of fiction, created by Bill O’Reilly for the express purpose of the show. It’s similar to the difference between Colbert the actor and Colbert the talk show host — and in fact the similarity to O’Reilly’s act is what makes the Colbert Report work so well.
Silverman got that the tides was not a genuine argument — it was just a blatant attempt to derail him on camera. That’s why he did not get into the physics of tides — the point was just to throw an irrelevant obstacle in his path.
I’ve seen quite a bit of speculation that a lot of the right wing pundits (like O’Reilly, Glen Beck, Michael Savage) are “faking it”. And it makes sense — they’re in politics. We often see politicians making completely disingenuous arguments that we know they don’t believe (sometimes because their real beliefs can be checked out) for the sake of cynical pandering. It should be no surprise that many pundits fall in the same trap.
The lesson I think to be learned here is that in argument, it’s always important to consider the possibility that the opponent is simply disingenuous. It’s probably human nature to presume people believe what they’re saying (and Poe’s Law shows that can be true no matter how ridiculous the opinion is). But sometimes it’s just a blatant act.
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