Bill Nye the Science Guy has taken the internet by storm with Twitter rumors that he was killed in a balloon accident (sparked by The Onion) and his new Web series for Big Think. Most recently, however, our favorite childhood TV scientist sparked a lively debate through his video blog, pitting science against creationism, and America, obviously, had something to say about it.

In one of his episodes for Big Think titled “Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children,” Bill Nye stated that “the denial of evolution is very unique to the United States” and that “we need scientifically literate taxpayers and voters for the future.”

What proceeded was a swirling vortex of controversy that wreaked havoc across the Web with clear lines being drawn between both believers of evolution and believers of creationism, and many attacking the Science Guy for his statements. In what looked like an attempt to quell the storm, Bill Nye went on ‘CBS This Morning‘ to clarify what he said in the almost three-minute video snippet.

“You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science is something else. My concern is you don’t want people growing up not believing in radioactivity, not believing in geology and deep time. You don’t want people in the United States growing up without the expectation that we can land spacecraft on Mars. You want people to believe in science, this process, this great idea that humans had to discover more about the universe and our place in it, our place in space. And I really want to emphasize, I’m not attacking anybody’s religion, but science, if you go to a museum and you see fossil dinosaur bones, they came from somewhere, and we have by diligent investigation have determined that the earth is 4.54 billion years old. The sun is a star, like all the other stars you see in the sky, and we are made of the same stuff. This is wonderful! This is fantastic discoveries that fill me with reverence, make me excited.”

Check out both his original video for Big Think and his response on CBS below. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Here’s his response on CBS:

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