# Bill O'Reilly: Fucking tides, how do they work? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 4, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150 "2011-02-04T15:01:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/61 "2011-02-04T20:42:24Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The claim at issue is that the Earth-Moon combination is unique and thus demonstrates the hand of God by its existence. But if you accept that natural processes can make planets with small moons (like Mars) and dual-dwarf-planets (like Pluto), then why can’t that same process make the Earth and Moon? > > There’s no argument that the Earth and Moon are an outlier, some sort of special exception among the bodies orbiting the sun. We’re just coincidentally, but happily, somewhere in the middle. Which is why I’m not adopting that argument. The same process made both Pluto and Earth, both Sol and Wolf 359. It’s fairly described as a natural process. In my personal belief, there is a God, and He was responsible for defining the natural laws which resulted in the formation of all celestial objects, but the fact that celestial objects exist is no particular evidence of His existence. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/62 "2011-02-04T20:45:33Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Earth has a lot of satellites, not just the one. Only the one natural satellite. Except let’s not forget Cruithne. [Cruithne, Earths "second moon"](http://burtleburtle.net/bob/physics/cruithne.html) Earth and 3753 Cruithne have no particular gravitational relationship, any more than the car next to me has any electronic connection to me just because our turn signals happen to flash on and off at the same frequency and at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/63 "2011-02-04T21:15:51Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think it would be possible – even easy – to mount a defense based on O’Reilly’s words. I could say that he was speaking not literally but metaphorically, arguing that the presence of a complex system that works so well for us suggests the presence of a Designer… > > …but I won’t, because I think the truth is that O’Reilly either forgot, or never knew, exactly what caused the tides, and rather than forthrightly admitting that he didn’t know, he’s now trying to “explain” and only digging himself deeper. Thing is, the tides are a pretty big \*hindrance \*rather than a boon. They force their own timetable on sailors, they regularly cause floods, and even if they can be harnessed for power it’s prohibitively expensive. If GAWD had wanted to create a cool system for humans, he’d have made a world where seas are perpetually calm. No drowned fishermen, no waiting in the bay for 6 hours before you can get to or leave port, no surfer dudes and no high sea refuse washed out on the beaches. Net positive. No classy Mount Saint Michel either, I guess, but considering how many poor fuckers got drowned by a sneak tide while trekking to it… ---
**Author:** ![Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Long\_Time\_First\_Time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Long_Time_First_Time)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/64 "2011-02-04T21:18:17Z")
Colbert has it covered: > **[The Colbert Report | Comedy Central](https://www.cc.com/shows/the-colbert-report)** > > Stephen Colbert takes on cable news pundits (and everyone else) in this political satire. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/65 "2011-02-04T21:19:55Z")
I recall hearing that five moons are buddies. I don’t know if they include the above, or it they hang in Lagrange points, etc. But I can’t find the cite, nor if the cite was later repudiated (e. g., third stage of a Saturn Five). Anybody want to clear this up? ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/66 "2011-02-04T21:32:49Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > > [@acsenray](#): > > > > Basically, O’Reilly’s argument boils down to the puddle who claims that the only explanation for the fact that the hole in the pavement is exactly the right size for it is that the hole was created by an intelligent designer just for that purpose. > > I like this a lot. So do I. If I recall correctly it’s from one on Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker books, but I don’t recall which one. As I recall the book goes on to talk about how, because it believes that it’s world was designed for it, the puddle believes that everything will be alright, even as it starts to shrink in the sunlight. It continues to believe that everything will be fine right up until the very last drop of it evaporates. It’s an excellent analogy of the human condition. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/67 "2011-02-04T21:39:36Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > I recall hearing that five moons are buddies. I don’t know if they include the above, or it they hang in Lagrange points, etc. But I can’t find the cite, nor if the cite was later repudiated (e. g., third stage of a Saturn Five). Anybody want to clear this up? Och! I met that the earth has five moons of various sizes in orbit around the earth… ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/68 "2011-02-04T21:54:26Z")
> [@user\_hostile](#): > > Och! I met that the earth has five moons of various sizes in orbit around the earth… [LaGrange points are places where you would be stable](http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMM17XJD1E_index_0.html), but there’s no moons there. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/69 "2011-02-04T23:05:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Earth and 3753 Cruithne have no particular gravitational relationship, any more than the car next to me has any electronic connection to me just because our turn signals happen to flash on and off at the same frequency and at the same time. Unless that car that is next to also always happens to travel through the same neighborhoods along the same paths at different times and occasionally jiggle around your car and both orbit the sun. Oh, and both have scantily dressed slave girl fantasies. In any case they make more sense than Bill O’Reilly on the subject of tidal forces. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/70 "2011-02-04T23:06:37Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > So do I. If I recall correctly it’s from one on Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker books, but I don’t recall which one. As I recall the book goes on to talk about how, because it believes that it’s world was designed for it, the puddle believes that everything will be alright, even as it starts to shrink in the sunlight. It continues to believe that everything will be fine right up until the very last drop of it evaporates. It’s an excellent analogy of the human condition. AFAIK it is not from one of his books but from his speech at Digital Biota 2 Cambridge U.K., September 1998: [http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/](http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/) > [@](#): > > Man the maker looks at his world and says ‘So who made this then?’ Who made this? - you can see why it’s a treacherous question. Early man thinks, ‘Well, because there’s only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he’s probably male’. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , ‘If he made it, what did he make it for?’ Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, ‘This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely’ and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him. > > This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. Just before he passed away ☹ , I had a chance to hear live from Douglas Adams himself a variation of that speech at an American Atheists convention in San Francisco, got from him a signed copy of the Illustrated Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/71 "2011-02-05T00:54:56Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > They do react to tidal force, which doesn’t require a liquid medium. No need to create a new term “tidal force” for which we already have a perfect good one" gravity. A “tide” is commonly understood to mean the movement of a liquid on the planet over a solid on that planet due to the gravitational pull of other objects in space. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/72 "2011-02-05T02:09:10Z")
> [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](#): > > I’m reminded of the M_A_S\*H episode with Ned Beatty as Fr. Mulcahey’s superior. Beatty’s character (I forget the name) is forceful, and implores Mulcahey to say to the camp: “Follow me!..you see…Follow me! With a bible in one hand and a sword in the other!” Beatty’s character turns out to be wrong in the advice he gave Mulcahey (about writing a letter to a soldier’s family saying the soldier would be okay–instead the soldier died). But it’s the “Follow me!” rhetoric that sticks with me. Irrrelevant nitpick: Although the solider takes a turn for the worse (thanks to some sort of incompetence on Frank Burns’ part), he pulls through ultimately. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/73 "2011-02-05T02:33:20Z")
And that’s why Bill O’Reilly is a moron. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/74 "2011-02-05T02:34:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No need to create a new term “tidal force” for which we already have a perfect good one" gravity. A “tide” is commonly understood to mean the movement of a liquid on the planet over a solid on that planet due to the gravitational pull of other objects in space. Tidal force is a perfectly good term, and does not mean ‘gravity’. A tidal force is _caused_ by gravity, when the gravitational force is exerted unevenly across an object. For example, if you fall into a black hole, at some point the difference in the gravitational force experienced by your head and that experienced by your feet will be so large that your body will be ripped apart. That’s a tidal force. The fact that one side of a planet is farther away from a star than the other also exerts a tidal force on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/75 "2011-02-05T02:48:42Z")
Say what you will ‘bout Bill O’, and I know you will, he still knows more about space science stuff than Sean Hannity does, “I don’t know how one can look at the majesty and the sophistication and the intricacy of universes within universes and the sun and the stars… and not hold out any possibility there’s a God\*”. (That’s his proof for the existence of God, “universes within universes”. :smack:) CMC fnord! \*Cobbled together from a couple of sites, despite the countless number of times I’ve heard him use this “proof” for God I can’t find a [link of him](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,591767,00.html) actually [using it in full](http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=9936.0). ☹ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/76 "2011-02-05T02:53:22Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Tidal force is a perfectly good term… Not in this context, where we were talking about whether planets like Mercury and Venus have "tides’. I asked if they really did have tides, and someone came back and said: well, they are subject to tidal forces. If we want to talk about tidal forces, which really are nothing more than gravity, then everything is subject to tidal forces, and we could say that my body has "tides’. But that makes the term “tide” not mean what it commonly means. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/77 "2011-02-05T03:19:04Z")
This thread did not go quite as I expected. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/78 "2011-02-05T03:32:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not in this context, where we were talking about whether planets like Mercury and Venus have "tides’. I asked if they really did have tides, and someone came back and said: well, they are subject to tidal forces. > > If we want to talk about tidal forces, which really are nothing more than gravity, then everything is subject to tidal forces, and we could say that my body has "tides’. But that makes the term “tide” not mean what it commonly means. Sure tidal forces are “nothing more than gravity”, but it’s a distinct enough phenomenon to merit a name. Tidal forces explain why the moon presents only one face to the earth. And yet the moon has no liquid on its surface. I suppose you could say that the moon’s orbital and rotational periods are the same because of gravity, but that’s not particularly illuminating. And yes, everything that’s extended in space “has tides” in this sense. But most things don’t have tides that are significant, and so we don’t talk about them - much as we don’t talk about the gravitational attraction between my car and a comet orbiting Beta Cygni. Mercury, on the other hand, experiences sufficient solar tidal force that it’s got a funky 3:2 spin/orbit resonance thing going on. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/79 "2011-02-05T03:34:42Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This thread did not go quite as I expected. Everyone already knows O’Reilly’s a dunderhead, sure as the sun sets in the west (every time, no miscommunication). ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150/80 "2011-02-05T03:39:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No need to create a new term “tidal force” for which we already have a perfect good one" gravity. A “tide” is commonly understood to mean the movement of a liquid on the planet over a solid on that planet due to the gravitational pull of other objects in space. Tidal force isn’t synonymous with gravity. It’s an effect of gravity. > **[Tidal force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force)** > > The tidal force or tide-generating force is the difference in gravitational attraction between different points in a gravitational field, causing bodies to be pulled unevenly and as a result are being stretched towards the attraction. It is the differential force of gravity, the net between gravitational forces, the derivative of gravitational potential, the gradient of gravitational fields. Therefore tidal forces are a residual force, a secondary effect of gravity, highlighting its spatial eleme... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-oreilly-fucking-tides-how-do-they-work/570150.md?page=5)