The Cosmos reboot was fairly generous as far as leaving room for religious interpretation goes. But apparently, one Fox affiliate station in Oklahoma City decided there was still just a little too much science talk for their liking, so they cut out the 15-second mention of evolution.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the show’s host, doesn’t mention evolution until the final 10 minutes of the episode, and even then he never so much as utters the e-word. But right as Tyson is about to explain our primordial ancestor’s first steps onto dry land, he’s cut off (mid-sentence) by an ad for the local nightly news. If you live in Oklahoma City, here’s what you missed:
We are newcomers to the Cosmos. Our own story only begins on the last night of the cosmic year.
Three and a half million years ago, our ancestors — your and mine left these traces. [Tyson points to footprints] We stood up and parted ways from them. Once we were standing on two feet, our eyes were no longer fixated on the ground. Now, we were free to .
Supposedly, splicing in the promo for KOKH-TV’s upcoming story about tween hunter/archer Lincoln Tapp was done entirely by accident. Uh huh. They might as well have just gone with this:
You can watch the full, unadulterated version down below to judge for yourself. [YouTube via Raw Story]