Jay Wile
[Originally published on Nov. 30, 2017 as More Evidence That Bill Nye Has No Idea What He Is Talking About]
Bill Nye calls himself “The Science Guy,” but most of his actions are decidedly anti-science.
- In 2012, he made a video saying that we should censor a scientific idea because it goes against the scientific consensus.
- He also narrated a faked experiment, demonstrating his ignorance of the physics related to global warming.
- He published a book about evolution that was riddled with scientific errors.
- He tried to discuss human reproduction and once again, ended up showing his ignorance.
- He also contends that the discipline which gave us science is essentially useless.
The fact that he is one of today’s spokesmen for science is a frightening indication of this generation’s scientific illiteracy.
As I was preparing to blog about a completely different subject today, I realized that over the past few days, I have come across two more examples that indicate Bill Nye really has no idea what he is talking about, so I decided to put off the topic I was going to discuss and write about those examples instead.
One of them relates to the first anti-science action I mentioned above. Nye made a video telling parents to stop thinking for themselves and encouraging their children to think for themselves. Instead, he told them to simply parrot what the High Priests of Science say when it comes to the origin of life and its diversity. Obviously, that is about as anti-science as one can get.
Along the way, he made an incredibly ignorant statement about the debate regarding origins:
Denial of evolution is unique to the United States.
As I pointed out previously, that is utter nonsense. There are creationist movements in many, many countries, including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, and the Netherlands.
Just a few days ago, however, I blogged about a specific example that comes from Germany. In 2015 Dr. Günter Bechly, a German paleontologist who was the curator of the Stuttgart Museum of Natural History, publicly announced that he thinks Intelligent Design is the best explanation for the origin and diversity of life. The Inquisition was mobilized, and he is no longer the curator of the Stuttgart Museum of Natural History. He is now a Senior Fellow at an Intelligent Design Think Tank, and he spoke at an Intelligent Design conference that was held at Cambridge University.
If denial of evolution were unique to the United States (as the anti-science guy says) Dr. Bechly would not have been “converted” from materialist NeoDarwinism to Intelligent Design, and there would not have been an Intelligent Design conference at one of England’s most famous universities.
The other example is a bit self-serving, but since this is my blog, I will discuss it anyway. As many of my readers know, I write science textbooks that teach science from a young-earth creationist perspective. As all science textbooks should, my books discuss many sides when it comes to the issue of origins, but they end up favoring the young-earth creationist side. Well, in Nye’s error-riddled book about evolution, he says this about students who are taught creationism:
Not only that, these kids will never feel the joy of discovery that science brings.
I have already given several examples of how wrong that statement is, but recently, I was given one more.
A student who used my textbooks when she was in high school recently sent me a Facebook message indicating that she had discovered a new bacteriophage, which is a virus that infects bacteria. She is part of a large project called the Science Education Alliance, and at the college where she is currently studying, that program is being used to allow students to collect and analyze soil samples, hunting for new bacteriophages. She ended up discovering a new one that infects bacteria from the genus Microbacterium.
Now remember what the anti-science guy says
Students who are taught creationism will never feel the joy of discovery that science brings. Well, this student was taught creationism, and she has already made a completely new scientific discovery. Far from creationism squelching such an opportunity (and here’s the self-serving part), it actually made the opportunity possible. In her report on her discovery, she explains why she named the virus “WileyJ”:
My favorite scientist growing up was Dr. Wile. He wrote all my science books and gave me a love for science so I wanted to honor him with that.
Now obviously part of my motivation for sharing this story is to “toot my own horn,” an instrument one pastor says I play very well. However, the other is to drive home how wrong the anti-science guy is. According to the student who made this discovery, the creationist textbooks with which she was educated gave her a love for science. That love is the reason she is doing the research which led to her discovery.
When will Bill Nye learn what real science is all about? Probably never, but I do hope that the more his ignorance about science comes to light, the less people will listen to his error-filled pontifications.
