Bill Nye: Anti-Science Politicians Endanger Us All | Big Think
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Published 2016-10-04
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It’s not unusual to hear someone openly say that they can’t do math at all; that they can’t figure out the percentage to tip on a bill. If someone said that chemistry hurts their brain and they can’t even look at an equation, or that they have no idea how a certain part of the human body does what it does, that wouldn’t be too surprising. These are usually light-hearted statements that go down well – many of us would sympathize, nod and say: yeah, me too.
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BILL NYE:
Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.
In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.
While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”
Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.
Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.
Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Bill Nye: Ebola’s a classic example for me from an evolutionary standpoint of germs and parasites being your real enemy as a big animal, a multicellular organism. Everybody’s terrified of Ebola because you can’t see it and as the saying goes this is not my idea. People aren’t afraid of dying so much as they’re afraid of how they’re going to die. And the Ebola death looks horrible. It’s awful. And what’s making it worse in Africa in particular is scientific illiteracy. People not realizing that these microorganisms get passed from one to another. When I was in South Africa – I guess it’s five years ago a guy told a story – he was from a village, a small village. He was working for the South African Space Agency which they have. And he says it’s going to villages where kids have never seen a magnet and they recommend that you don’t go near that tree because the lightening bird landed on that tree and that means that tree will get struck by lightning and the tree branch will fall on you. And that’s not true by the way. So by having a population of people who don’t really understand germs and how serious they are, the germ gets spread really readily. As far as people freaking out here in the U.S., it’s appropriate. However, the same legislatures when it comes to climate change say well I’m not a scientist. I can’t have an opinion on climate change sure have a lot of opinions about Ebola. There’s a faction of our leaders, elected officials, who continually cuts the budget for the Centers for Disease Control which, to me reflects an ignorance of how serious germs can be.
I remind us all that in 1918 more people died of what was called the Spanish Flu than died from World War I which killed a lot of people. The Spanish Flu killed – the estimates vary but about 50 million people died of the flu. And when you think ...
For the full transcript, check out bigthink.com/videos/bill-nye-on-science-literacy-a…
All Comments (21)
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The sheer amount of scientifically illiterate people in this country disturbs me to my very core. Sometimes I can fool myself that this isn't an issue, from speaking and listening to my group of literate friends, but it's always overshadowed by the looming mass of ignorance led by politicians and the media. It fills me with a sense of loneliness which is rooted into my bones.
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I'd hardly call the, skeptics. They seem to deny science more on ideological grounds than intellectual grounds. Some people just don't like their beliefs being challenged.
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I like Bill Nye, but the comments on his videos always seem to be full of atheists patting each other on the back for not being religious. I'm not religious either, but I wish Big Think would challenge its viewers more by exposing them to ideas they don't already hold, or push them to personally take some type of action. There seems to be a sense of satisfaction that people get merely from "Being on the Right Side" that might make them complacent towards trying to actually improve the planet, beyond just cracking jokes about how dumb they think Christians are.
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You look worn out Bill. Maybe even depressed. Hope everything's ok.
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In regards to the ignition switch... “A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” ― Douglas Adams
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Science is the last thing that needs to be cut from the budget.
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This aged well
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"Science ain't no good or useful, i only trust Baaaaaby Jesus!", says that while using a PC, a wifi connexion and the internet...
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my religious education teacher, said today: "Death isn't part of the human nature, if there wasn't evil there wouldn't be any deaths" Me and my friend were the only students to say :"WHAT????????" (unfortunately)
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It’s frightening how scientifically illiterate we are ....as a middle school science teacher I’m trying to “change the world”....thank you Mr Nye
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"Stop and appreciate how complicated these things are." As someone who keeps trying to fix my own motorcycle due to lack of money, I do have the time to appreciate the complexity of these machines. I have plenty of time to 'appreciate' that. (As amazing as it is, fixing this damned thing is frustration incarnate.)
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Lets not forget about the greatest strides man achieved. To me, the most important things which makes everything else possible are: Clean drinking water. Hand washing. Vaccinations. Treatment of bacterial infections, and lastly, education. I can't say enough about clean drinking water. Dysentery used to kill people by the bajillions. Simply washing your hands reduces bacterial and viral counts low enough to make them less likely to be transmitted by direct contact. I'm old enough to know people that had childhood polio. I'm old enough to have been deliberately exposed to chickenpox so I would have a lifelong immunity to it. Chickenpox is deadly to adults. The population of the United States has doubled since I was born. I'm trying to decide whether that's good or bad, but I'm glad to live in an era where almost all infants reach adulthood. I was able have clean water, and endless supply of food, warm shelter, Johnny Carson, the first few seasons of SNL, and I got to watch the moon missions on B&W TV. Man, what an awesome life I've been given because of science.
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Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson inspired me to become an engineer. Now I'm getting my B.S. In electrical and computer engineering
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You start arguing for a better educated populous rather than arguing for a less skeptical one. But use an example of planned obsolescence to back your argument. Ultimately ending on "understand how these things work". From political or religious ideologies to drugs, skepticism to unchecked economic greed, without balance anything in excess is a bad thing.
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If they don't appreciate science can't we turn off their electricity? That's what they want.
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A lot of these people react irrationally not necessarily because they don't know science, but because their emotions block their critical thinking capacities.
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correction: Not science skeptics, but rather science deniers!
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BILL NYE FOR PRESIDENT 2016!!!
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Without 'skepticism' there is no Science.
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Bill's bow tie looks like a really good candy. i love it! oh and yeah we need scientifically literate politicians....but that bow tie!
