Bill Nye the Science Guy
William Sanford "Bill" Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as "Bill Nye the Science Guy", is an American scientist, television host, comedian, and hip-hop record producer, most popularly known for his children's educational television program Bill Nye the Science Guy. A fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, he is most well known, in the years since his Science Guy program, for making television appearances questioning and critiquing pseudosciences.
Television program[edit]
Nye is most notable for his Bill Nye the Science Guy 1990s children's television series. In this series, he melded humor and entertainment with actual teaching about science and scientific concepts. This often included watering down complicated scientific theories, such as evolution, into easily understandable, "do-it-yourself at home" sketches. Being a skeptic himself, he once dedicated an entire episode of his program to the exploration of pseudoscience.
Current activities[edit]
Bill Nye has long been a member of the Planetary Society, an international NGO supporting the exploration of the Solar System, and in 2011 became the CEO of that organization. He regularly appears on the Planetary Society's podcast, Planetary Radio which interviews a prominent scientist every week.
Bill Nye also makes appearances at geology and astronomy conventions and occasionally lobbies Congress for NASA funding.
Creationism is not appropriate for children[edit]
In 2012, Nye came out with a video in which he eloquently argued against the teaching of creationism to children. According to Nye, "your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution." This video, of course, was met with typical ad hominem attacks by promoters of nonsense that he was stifling "academic freedom."
Debate with Ken Ham[edit]
- See main article: Bill Nye debates Ken Ham
On January 2, 2014, Answers in Genesis announced that Ken Ham and Bill Nye would debate on "Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?" on February 4, 2014 at the Creation Museum. Ham whined about criticism of the debate on his blog, stating, "You see, the atheists are actually insecure in their beliefs. Not only that, but atheists in many ways have managed to censor information concerning creation from the public" (on a blog with no comments, of course).
RationalWiki's commentary on the debate may be found here.
Pro-Choice Viewpoints[edit]
Spending time with Big Think again, Nye spent a few moments speaking the abortion debate. His scientific dissection of fertilized eggs is pretty spot on.
Flipping on GMOs[edit]
Nye at one point was skeptical about genetically modified foods, producing a short video segment on how there is uncertainty about the science. In 2014 using his first book Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, he reiterates this point. In 2015 after first round publishing, Monsanto's chief technology officer Robb Fraley invited him to the campus to alleviate Nye's fears and educate him on the current state of GMO science. To follow up, second edition books going forward have the chapter about GMOs revised to be positive based on these experiences.
Big Think video on philosophy[edit]
As an example of an inverse stopped clock on a subject outside is area of expertise, Nye made some rather embarrassing statements about philosophy in a Big Think video.
Footnotes[edit]
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