On Friday night's edition of "Real Time with Bill Maher," host Bill Maher railed against Americans' willingness to embrace myth over science and said that to claim that there is still a debate over climate change is like debating whether or not the Earth is flat.
In a panel discussion that included anti-Creationism activist Zack Copplin, Huffington Post's Abby Huntsman, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Wall Street Journal columnist Steve Moore, Maher said he'd love to stop calling Americans stupid, but then he keeps seeing polls like a recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey that found that 37 percent of Americans think climate change is a hoax.
28 percent of Republicans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, according to the poll, and 22 percent of people who voted for former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) for president believe that President Barack Obama is the antichrist.
Kopplin, 19, said, "The most important poll is the climate change one." While certain percentages of the U.S. public will always believe in Bigfoot, most of those people are not affecting public policy.
Moore asserted that the debate on climate change is still ongoing.
"That's a canard, Steve," said Maher. "There are scientists on the other side, but they're backed by the American Petroleum Institute."
Again, Moore asserted that there's still a debate about whether the Earth's climate is changing.
"Should we still debate whether the Earth is flat?" Maher demanded. "That's not how science works. At some point, you reach a consensus, then debate the next issue."
"Scientists are wrong all the time," Moore insisted.
Watch the video, embedded via Mediaite, below:
