TT star John McGuinness sparked controversy over a comment he made about a scientist who recently appeared on the ITV show Good Morning Britain.

The motorcycle racer tweeted a picture of his TV screen, showing Professor Devi Sridhar, who was discussing the Covid-19 pandemic, with the comment: ’Why is this bird on my TV every morning waffling the same sh*t?’

Professor Sridhar is the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 advisory group, as well as being part of a Royal Society group which influences the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

She frequently appears on television and in other media as an expert in public health, offering commentary on the pandemic and government responses to it.

McGuinness’s tweet sparked a heated debate on Twitter, with some commenters accusing the TT rider (pictured) of misogyny, and others tweeting in support of him.

Many questioned why a ’biker’ would question an ’Internationally renowned’ professor as she speaks about her field of expertise, with one commenter suggesting that McGuinness should stick to what he knows, ’riding vroom vroom bikes around an island’.

Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan also stepped in to defend Professor Sridhar, tweeting: ’That ’bird’ is Professor @devisridhar - one of the most brilliant scientists in the world who has been proven consistently right in this crisis.

’You, by contrast, are a disgusting misogynist dinosaur who puts the TT into ’Tw*T.’

Mr Morgan recently shared a Channel 4 interview with the professor where she warned that the UK could end up in ’constant lockdown cycles’ if hospital cases and deaths continue to rise, and stressed that ’the virus is killing the economy, not restrictions’.