Glenn Beck Yelling At Bill Nye About Noah's Ark, Because Science

Gotta catch 'em all, two by two

After years of planning and some constitutionally dubious tax help from the state of Kentucky, the Big Fake Creationist Noah's Ark Theme Park (fine, its official name is the "Ark Encounter") opened this summer in Williamstown, Kentucky, and among the first high-profile guests was science edu-tainer Bill Nye the Science Guy, who took a tour of the big fake ark in July. Ark Encounter huckster Ken Ham, the genius behind the nearby Creation Museum, knows that having Nye attack his Bible-Land tourist traps as bad science -- which they are -- is actually terrific publicity, since nothing brings in the rubes like a mean old scientist casting doubt on the word of God. Similarly, Nye appreciates the chance to tell people that Ham is a charlatan who fills people's heads with nonsense, so it works out to be a pretty good symbiotic relationship, though at $40 a head for adult tickets (kids just $28!), perhaps more remunerative for Ham than for Nye.

Even though Nye's visit to the Trailer Ark took place in July, Ham has been releasing a steady stream of video snippets to his YouTube channel and Facebook page ever since, resulting in a steady trickle of friendly coverage in the Christianist blogosphere, like a Christian Post story the other day which featured a "debate" between Ham and Nye on why humans wear clothes ( Sin! says Ham. Weather and culture! says Nye). All in all, everyone's pretty happy -- in the mainstream press,Nye explains, "Every single science exhibit [at the Ark Encounter] is absolutely wrong. Not just misleading, but wrong." And Ham gets to make a big publicity-generating show of praying for Nye to see the truth and save his immortal soul. Ham has been surfing a steady flow of butthurt Christianist money ever since he "debated" evolution with Nye in 2014.

Never one to miss the opportunity to glom onto publicity, Glenn Beck, the Incredible Shrinking Rightwing Media Icon, decided he may as well use Nye's name as a means of getting some attention Thursday with this very amusing Tweet, which includes several punes, or plays on words:

We guess he succeeded, because here we are writing about what a sad, transparent attempt at publicity seeking it is, with a whopping 104 retweets. Or as photographer David Hobby put it in one of the better replies to Beck:

Translation: "I have fallen so far I would gladly get my ass kicked in a debate just to get some attention right now."

Remember when that Beck guy was the darling of the Tea Party and could get tens of thousands of people to show up in DC for his Great American Slob Picnic? Then he predicted the apocalypse was right around the corner a few times too many, his ad revenue started falling, Fox shitcanned him, and now he can't even get a rise out of Bill Nye, who lately has been busy touring Greenland to call attention to global warming (which of course is also a giant scam).

Yeah, his right eye doesn't look so good there. Global warming? What about Bill Nye's eye?

In conclusion, science is good, but people are idiots, and we've been reading  Merchants of Doubt,  which doesn't make us feel especially hopeful about the prospects of sciencey people getting much traction in the ongoing fight against bullshit, Amen.

[ WaPo / NBC News / Christian Post / Glenn Beck on Twitter]