Bill Nye talks about creationism, evolution, and his new book

88 thoughts on “Bill Nye talks about creationism, evolution, and his new book”

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2. I wasn’t a big fan of Nye’s decision to debate Hamm, but I’m with him here. We have to battle for every young mind to learn as much as possible about science, and how and why it works. You may be right that science literacy has not varied much over the last decades, but the anti-science presence in our public leadership is now far worse than it has ever been. (A great symbol of this: James Inhofe, climate change denier-in-chief, will now lead the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee!) We can debate whether evolution is the right vehicle for this fight, but if that’s what motivates such a well-known and positive role model as Nye, I’m fine with it. And besides considerations like the future of the planet, I just hate the idea that kids would miss out on the profound joy of “seeing” evolution all around them. Go Bill!

   1. I agree. It is weird that US have the some of the best universities in the world and also creationists and climate change deniers in the congress taking decisions that have global consequences. This is consequence of voters opinions in these issues.

3. If you think of creationism as a gateway drug to many different forms of science denial it’s importance grows. For many young people evolution is the first time they’re taught science is wrong, and results in them more easily accepting similar claims about things like climate change, where popular support is extremely important in terms of things like funding.

   1. I wanted to add. Not only do they learn science is wrong, but that scientists are actively conspiring to fabricate evidence, so you can’t trust anything they say.

      1. Yes! What an excellent pair of points you make here.

      2. In particular, this falls under Jerry’s point about learning methods and “the culture of science” rather than specific results. Specific results also feed back in and become background knowledge for further investigations.

   2. I am not convinced about the funding. If I can make a design that improves refrigeration based on some a novel laser cooling method this could potentially have huge economic advances. Funding would be remedially achieved.

      You might claim it does not work like that. Money goes to military instead of science, one possibility. OK. Well they have interests that are immediately aligned with high risk science initiatives: like long-range precisely targeted distributed energy weapons…how do you think those things work: they rely on fundamental physics. What about data mining: smart routines that can sift a kilobyte of information from a petebyte of noise. These routines also help negotiate strategies that make can in principle establish better medicines or limit search for dark energy.

      I am not convinced bad decisions inevitably come people who believe the earth is 6000 years old. I would be convinced if you took their smart phones away and they did not cry like babies. If they did not mind I would be scared that they actually believed science is worthless.

      Religious people live a hypocritcal life, and that’s a paradoxial advantage to having science stay alive.

   3. If you think of creationism as a gateway drug to many different forms of science denial it’s importance grows.

      Exactly.

      It also touches on the most important question that an educated, thinking person needs to ask themselves all the time: “how we know what we know?”. Creationism is the gateway to the appreciation of “the other ways of knowing” and to intellectual relativism (“everybody has their own truth, whose to say yours is better than mine” etc). The truth ceases to be the ultimate value. It is a dangerous path.

4. pardon me if I’m confused for no reason but it seems to be the sentence in the poster that says “we must educate the next generation…” seems to be pretty much the same as “If we have a society that’s increasingly dependent on these technologies, with a smaller and smaller fraction of that society who actually understands how any of it works, that is a formula for disaster. So, I’m just trying to change the world here.”

5. My analysis mostly agrees with yours, Jerry, but there’s one point in which I think Nye might be on to something…and that’s that the public, directly or indirectly, plays a large role in policy decisions. If the next generation rejects truth en masse in favor of fantasy, we’ll see even more disastrous public policy decisions being made.

   An uneducated public is easy for parasites to manipulate.

   That’s perhaps especially the case when it comes to biology and Evolution. All the remaining sticky wickets of religion are perhaps most easily torn down with biology. Whether or not some spook sparked the Big Bang a baker’s dozen billion years ago is pretty irrelevant to life today on Earth; not irrelevant is whether or not said spook also jizzes a soul into the egg the same instant the sperm penetrates it. Once you realize that the answer to when life begins has nothing to do with conception and is instead answered with a simple, “not quite four billion years ago,” those sorts of theological controls get broken at the knees.

   b&

   1. I agree Ben, and also with Mike Paps at #3 and KD33 at #2 above. (I tweeted about climate-denier Inhofe’s new job yesterday. It’s not the first time such a thing has happened in the US either.) I don’t think everyone needs to be a scientist, but I do think they need to have a good understanding of the basics. That has to include evolution not just for reasons of science, but because of what is taught by some religions in relation to it.

      Many of you probably remember, and were maybe even affected by the stance of the Bush administration on stem cell research.

      Things like understanding why your kids should be vaccinated, or why you need a flu jab every year are easier to explain to an evolution-literate population.

      The panic in the US, which is costing the country millions, because so many just don’t get the science as it relates to Ebola is another example. In New Zealand we haven’t had any actual cases, but passengers from the region are often put under a monitoring regime. There’s no drama about this except from one politician who’s known for stirring up controversy to get media attention. It’s not working this time because people understand just how unlikely it is they’ll catch Ebola from an asymptomatic person.

      So I’m glad our kids are given a good grounding in evolution, and I’d like to see the same in all countries. It’s also the best branch of science to get them questioning religion.

      1. “I don’t think everyone needs to be a scientist, but I do think they need to have a good understanding of the basics.”

         Which I’d define as “enough knowledge to be embarrassed to vote for Inhofe”.

   2. Well, do we have to pay him to keep his opinions to himself on GMO then?

      http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/11/06/bill-nye-explains-gmo-skeptic/#.VF097-N_uSo

      1. GMO crops are evil, but not because they’ve got “unnatural” genes. They’re evil for the same reasons everything else Monsanto and ADM and the rest do are evil.

         Yes, modern agribusiness has made it possible to feed far more people per acre than ever before in history…but only for a very limited time. Topsoil is nearly gone and ecosystems are in dire condition due to monocultures and poisoning from pesticides and fertilizer runoff. GMO crops are more of the same, but even worse; RoundUp-Ready crops encourage far more glyphosate application than ever before, and BT crops are themselves constant applicators of needless pesticides. And add to that all the shady business practices, such as suing farmers when their own non-GMO crops get contaminated with GMO patents blowing in on the wind from their neighbors. Oh — and forget seed saving, literally the oldest and most essential agricultural technique known to humanity; plant GMO crops once, and you’re now beholden to the patent owner for seeds to replant every season for the rest of your life.

         There’s no reason in principle GMO crops couldn’t be everything they’re hyped up to be. There’s just no reason in practice to expect the patent owners to enrich anything other than their next quarterly executive bonus pools.

         b&

         1. So Ben, what answers can you suggest to fix this “evil”? The “evil” that
            “modern agribusiness has made it possible to feed far more people per acre than ever before in history”.
            I would like to see data on your conclusion “but only for a limited time.”

            Seems to me you’re conflating the facts of the science with the fact of the corporate dominance of the science. Hence your understandable anger, Still? …

            1. So Ben, what answers can you suggest to fix this “evil”?

               Alas, none that scale.

               I personally avoid contributing as much as is practical by buying organic. Not for supposed-but-nonexistent health benefits, but as a protest against big agribusiness. I’m slowly starting in on the garden, too.

               But we really do have so many people that the only way to feed them all in the short term is with industrialized agriculture…and yet we’re running out of time in which industrialization is feasible. Things will get ugly….

               b&

            2. My tentative idea I’ve been thinking about for a while is an “open source” movement for GMOs, just like in software and (more recently) in FPGAs and other electronics.

         2. Ben do you have an example of “suing farmers when their own non-GMO crops get contaminated with GMO patents blowing in on the wind from their neighbors”?

            I’ve never been able to find an actual case of this happening.

            And regarding this:
            “plant GMO crops once, and you’re now beholden to the patent owner for seeds to replant every season for the rest of your life.”

            Do you have some evidence for this? How would a patent owner prevent a farmer from purchasing seeds from another provider?

            Also, as I understand it, non hobbyist commercial farmers typically do not save seeds for practical reasons anyway.

            1. Here it is from Monsanto themselves:

               http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/pages/saved-seed-farmer-lawsuits.aspx

               b&

            2. Have you even read your link??

               And in addition, you might want to read what a farmer has to say about it.

               http://thefarmerslife.com/biotechnology/i-occupy-our-food-supply-everyday/

               Besides, GMO or not, new plants are patentable. Your argument is invalid and based on crappy research. Do your homework.

            3. Have you even read the rules for posting here? You could have made your point without being rude, and if you want to post here again, you need to apologize for your incivility.

               Where do you think you are? Not at those “other” sites that permit nastiness.

            4. I apologize for characterizing your research as “crappy”, that was over the top.

               I get angry when people repeatedly make untrue claims and post a source that doesn’t even say what they claim to say.

         3. When I learned about this study, it raised my suspicion that there may be a major publication bias going on with the industry reporting on GMO…

            “There was an article published in 2011 in the Journal of Food Policy that was actually very interesting because it looked at this issue of conflict of interest, both financial conflict and professional conflict of interest. And for articles in which there was a professional conflict of interest, there were 41 studies, and that means one or more of the authors in each of the studies worked in the industry. Of those 41 studies, every single one of them found no problem. For studies where there was not a professional conflict, that is where none of the authors came from industry, there were 51 studies, 12 of them found problems. That was a highly statistically significant difference, the probability of that happening by chance was less than one in 1000, was less than .001. So what that suggests is that if a study on GMOs involves an industry scientist, if they’re an author on it, it will invariably find no problem at all with the GMO.”

            http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=13-P13-00049&segmentID=2

         4. This post is pure nonsense on par with most creationist and climate change denial rants.

            Let’s start out with the most obvious nonsense:

            “add to that all the shady business practices, such as suing farmers when their own non-GMO crops get contaminated with GMO patents blowing in on the wind from their neighbors.”

            Despite being a common lie, this is pure nonsense. When challenged on it below, you linked to a Monsanto page that does not support your assertion. Does Monsanto sue farmers who violate their patents? Yes, as they should. Farmers who buy Monsanto seeds recognize that part of what they are paying for is the future development of better seeds. Farmers who steal patented seeds are not just stealing from Monsanto, but also stealing from other farmers in terms of less money being available for future development.

            However, that is not your claim. Your claim is that Monsanto sues non-gmo farmers for accidental contamination. This has never happened. Not once. In fact just a year or two ago a lawsuit by the organic industry against Monsanto on this issue was laughably dismissed in the court systems as they (the organic industry) could not come up with a single case of a farmer ever being sued for accidental contamination. It is shameful to see such lies being peddled here.

            “Oh — and forget seed saving, literally the oldest and most essential agricultural technique known to humanity”

            It is hardly essential. I grew up on a farm. My father, both grandfathers, my brother, a dozen uncles, and more than a dozen cousins are all farmers. None of them save seeds today, nor have they in about 70 years. I remember one year in the early 80s my father, frustrated with the local monopoly, decided to save seeds. He considered it to be one of the dumbest moves of his career. Costly to clean, took up space that could have been used for more valuable things, and resulted in a crop that he felt was inferior to if he had bought seeds. Yes that is anecdotal, but there are reasons why very few farmers in the industrial world have saved seeds in several generations.

            “plant GMO crops once, and you’re now beholden to the patent owner for seeds to replant every season for the rest of your life.”

            Complete nonsense. This is on par with the claims of Ken Ham. Farmers have far, far more choice in seeds now then they have in the past (while there has been seed company consolidation, boundaries have been brought down in terms of how easy it to buy from seed companies that are far away. Many years ago, my father had little practical choice but to buy from the one local small seed company, who because of that local monopoly had poor service, high prices and little variety). Many farmers switch back and forth between GMO crops and non-GMO crops. Seriously, think about your claim for a second? It is conspiracy nonsense that would impress a 9/11 truther.

            “Topsoil is nearly gone and ecosystems are in dire condition due to monocultures and poisoning from pesticides and fertilizer runoff.”

            Again this is nonsense. In 1980 roughly 60% of farm land in Canada was in the lowest-risk category for topsoil depletion. Today it is at least 85%. The areas that have improved the most are the areas of the country that grow the most GM crops. The round-up ready crops that you hate bring with them the benefit of being no-till. That no-till dramatically reduces topsoil losses, and with it the fuel usage for tilling the soil. Organic farming can’t compete with that. Soil depletion in Europe is much more of a problem, and it is a disastrous situation in Africa. In both areas that situation would improve with an embrace of modern agricultural science and technology – such as GMOs.

            “RoundUp-Ready crops encourage far more glyphosate application than ever before”

            So what? Round-up is better for the environment than other herbicides, and round-up ready brings with the benefits listed above. No more roundup is used than is needed. Farmers don’t throw away their money.

            “BT crops are themselves constant applicators of needless pesticides.”

            Most, if not all, plants produce their own pesticides. BT crops reduce the need for pesticide spraying – spraying that kills all insects instead of specifically targeting those insects that are feeding on the crop. It also makes the crops safer. Insect damage leads to mycotoxins that are significant carcinogens.

            Pesticides are not needless. We have a couple choices. We can spray pesticides which do cause serious environmental damage. We can not bother with pesticides which leads to more crop losses, and therefore the environmental damage of requiring significantly more farm land, along with more dangerous food (an example being the New Zealand killer zucchini of 2003 or 2004, in which after an insect infestation the conventionally grown zucchinis were perfectly safe, but the organic ones were extremely toxic BECAUSE they had not been sprayed with pesticides and the produce reacted by creating significant quantities of their own), or we can do what Rachel Carson recommended – come up with biological controls including ones derived in the lab. That is what BT crops do. The plants produce an insecticide that we know is completely safe, unlike the ones they naturally produce which may or may not be safe for humans.

            “There’s just no reason in practice to expect the patent owners to enrich anything other than their next quarterly executive bonus pools.”
            Apart from your apparent lack of understanding that crop patents have existed for close to 100 years and that many non-GM plants are patented.
            It is Unfortunate that excessive regulations have resulted in there only being a few players who can afford to commercialize GM crops. As farmers see the tremendous benefits of GM crops those few large players do very well.
            However, if (for instance) Monsanto stops improving their seeds each year, farmers will quickly switch to Syngenta, Dupont or Bayer. Or they will switch to non-gmo seeds. Choice and competition when it comes to seeds greatly exceeds most other areas in agriculture (an example being heavy machinery where there are two massive players).
            From a recent meta-analysis:
            “On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22%, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries”

            http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0111629

            Clearly, it is not just patent holders that are being enriched by modern science being brought into agriculture. The Luddites who are trying to keep agriculture in the dark ages are not hurting Monsanto, but they are harming the environment, the poor and farmers.

            1. I’ve put this up because its content is useful, but its tone is a bit nasty. Please try to be more civil to other commenters. You’re new here, right? Please read “Da Roolz” on the left hand side of the page.

               You can make every point you made without calling people names and accusing them of “rants.”
               Thank you.

            2. I have probably posted here once or twice over the years, I just rarely have anything to say. Yes I agree my tone was a little nasty.

               I get that people are distrustful of corporations (as am I), and that they have issues with modern agriculture (as do I), but calling a technology evil does not help the situation. Nor do I think that the post I responded to was particularly kind to the farmers who feed us.

               We have hit the wall with traditional methods – they have been providing diminishing returns. We have simply already done most of what we can do with those methods. However, the Red Queen ensures that if we stand still we will quickly fall far behind the insects and weeds. Newer methods, including GMOs, will be needed to feed the population as it peaks later this century. If we take full advantage of these new technologies we will require less land, and less harmful chemicals than if we don’t take full advantage of these new technologies. Keep in mind that I am not comparing if we use or don’t use these new technologies, but comparing if we take full advantage of them or not. We will use them. Any ban today will be found to be untenable in a decade or two.

            3. We have hit the wall with traditional methods – they have been providing diminishing returns. We have simply already done most of what we can do with those methods. However, the Red Queen ensures that if we stand still we will quickly fall far behind the insects and weeds.

               You’re assuming that such a race can even theoretically be won. Rather, it’s an exercise in exponential growth which inevitably and rapidly gets out of hand.

               The answer isn’t to seek a cancerous state of all-consuming never-ending growth; rather, it’s to seek the maturity of a steady state. And that’s not difficult to do in principle; just look at a terrarium in a sealed glass dome that is essentially immortal, so long as light and temperature stay within reason.

               It’s not just the plant and animal pests we’re fighting. We’re draining aquifers faster than they’re being replenished, and topsoil is eroding (and becoming nutrient-deficient) faster than it’s being regenerated.

               It is possible to do agriculture in a way that’s sustainable over the course of millennia, but not at current production rates. Rather, you have to accept lower yields per acre (because the pests get to some, but not all, of your crops) as well as lower year-over-year productivity as you plant soil-building cover crops in rotation. And, of course, obviously you either have to stop pumping groundwater at rates greater than decade-average rainfall amounts or you have to do the desalination thing.

               The problem we have as a society is twofold. First, we’ve already got more people than we can feed with such sustainable techniques. And, more immediately…though these techniques are far more profitable over the span of generations, they’re also significantly more expensive on a quarterly basis.

               You’re familiar with the proverb about the folly of eating your seed corn? Well, that’s exactly what agribusiness is all about, save on a scale so vast that it’s easy to overlook that that’s what we’re really doing. And, just as you can have a mighty fine feast with your seed corn at the expense of starvation the next season, we’ve been feasting on the wealth of the land at the expense of famine in not that many more generations.

               b&

            4. Does Monsanto sue farmers who violate their patents? Yes, as they should.

               …and that right there demonstrates that there’s a gulf between us which likely cannot even in principle be bridged.

               That you see it as right and proper that a company should use patent law to prevent seed saving — quite literally, that which gave us civilization in the first place — is…well…

               …I could go on, but only at risk for violating Da Roolz. Suffice it that that sort of bullshit is as insane as a mandatory “license” for air. If the profoundly perverse evil of that sort of thing isn’t instantly obvious to you…I ain’t got nothin’ for ya’.

               b&

            5. Farmers can save seeds. There are countless seed varieties in which they can do so.

               I can use all kinds of freeware software, however, I choose to pay for some software because it brings me benefits that outweigh the costs. One of my favorite software programs is one that I have paid a yearly licence for about a decade. At the start it was slightly better than freeware versions, but now it is much, much better, and requests I have made have been integrated into the program. That is the value of paying for things.

               I can read this blog for free. However, if I want a copy of Jerry Coyne’s book I should pay for it. And after paying him for it, I shouldn’t just be able to start churning out copies of his work and distributing them. Providing him with compensation for work that I deem to be valuable gives him an incentive to continue to put in the effort that results in future books.

               People generally understand this. And they understand that farmers should be paid for their work, and the developers of the heavy equipment that farmers use should be compensated for their work. But seed producers? Nope. They should spend a decade of work and millions of dollars to develop better seeds, get those seeds through the regulatory framework and after doing so they should get nothing in return.

               There is a reason why the crops for which there are GMO varieties available, those GMO varieties quickly become dominant. That is because the return on investment is an incentive to continually produce better seeds.

               Nor is this a GMO issue. Of course hybrids seeds have never been savable, but many other non-gmo seeds are not allowed to be saved. The clearfield line of crops for instance (not gmo, and herbicide resistant, despite everyone thinking that only GMOs are herbicide resistant)have the exact same rules in place.

               http://wheat.colostate.edu/CSUWheatBreeding/Links_files/03116.pdf

               Your opposition to patenting seeds goes against the desires of the vast majority of farmers, the very people who are purchasing those patented seeds.

               They want patented seeds, because they want the improved innovation that those patents bring. They spend more money on seeds to gain higher productivity. They don’t want to save seeds.

               That in no way takes away from the rights of the small number of farmers who want to save seeds. They have plenty of choices. So if they have plenty of choices in non-patented seeds, why would they bother buying patented seeds and then trying to save them? Because they want the advantages that patented seeds have. Why do the non-patented seeds not have those same advantages that patented seeds have? Because those advantages took too much time and money to produce for any company to do so without a patenting. If they did so they would be bankrupt within a year. So that small percentage of farmers who want to save seeds may grumble because their savable seeds are not as good, but that is their choice.

               What you want is to take away the choices of farmers, to bring seed innovation to a standstill, and that would simply result in all seeds being as poor as the non-patented seeds(well actually it would just result in the good seeds all being hybrids which will produce a terrible yield if saved and therefore must be bought every year).

               And yes, I noticed that in your post you did not respond to my allegations that the claims you made are incorrect.

            6. As to your other reply to me (as it will not allow me to reply there)

               My positions are inline with the relevant experts and inline with the academic books on this issue by Smil (Feeding the World) Conway (One Billion Hungry: Can We Feed the World?) and Thompson (Agro-Technology).

               “You’re assuming that such a race can even theoretically be won.”

               No, I am not assuming that the race can be won. As the Red Queen says – it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. You are assuming that we can stop running and we will remain in the same place.

               If we stop running, if we adopted the agricultural system you advocate the human population would dramatically fall, and those dying people will not just happily die. They will do what ever they can to get the resources they need to survive (as they should), and that would result in massive environmental destruction.

               “The answer isn’t to seek a cancerous state of all-consuming never-ending growth”

               That is not what I have advocated.

               “It’s not just the plant and animal pests we’re fighting. We’re draining aquifers faster than they’re being replenished,”

               Sure, and part of the solution will be to produce plants that require less water to produce the same amount of food. Modifying C3 plants – which constitute most of our crop plants – to be C4 plants (or modifying C3 plants so they have B-carboxysome stuctures like cyanobacteria do) would result in them growing faster while using less water and less nitrogen. This may or may not be possible (although both have strong proof of concepts already), but if it is possible it can only be done with biotechnology.

               “and topsoil is eroding (and becoming nutrient-deficient) faster than it’s being regenerated.”

               I already talked about soil erosion.

               “Rather, you have to accept lower yields per acre (because the pests get to some, but not all, of your crops) as well as lower year-over-year productivity as you plant soil-building cover crops in rotation.”

               This would be a complete disaster for us and the environment. Luckily, it is such an obvious disaster that governments would never even think of implementing such measures.

               “The problem we have as a society is twofold. First, we’ve already got more people than we can feed with such sustainable techniques.”

               Your organic agriculture techniques are not sustainable. The recent study by Nowak et al found that French organic farms were dependent on conventional farms for a large chunk of their nitrogen,most of their potassium and almost all of their phosphorus.

               The only hope for a sustainable agricultural system is using science and technology, not using a system that favors ideology over evidence and was founded on vitalism and other pseudo-science concepts.

               Our population will likely peak late this century, the key is be able feed that number of people while causing the least environmental destruction. Bringing poor world farmers out of poverty will bring population growth down substantially. Those farmers will be brought out of poverty by technology and increased yields, not the methods you advise which are the methods they have long been using, and which have failed.

               “You’re familiar with the proverb about the folly of eating your seed corn?”

               I care about science and evidence. Proverbs are fun, but they didn’t create the internet or computer I am using right now, or the food I had for lunch.

            7. “That is because the return on investment is an incentive to continually produce better seeds.”

               That is, the incentive of non-STEM investor types to invest in the STEM types possessed of the knowledge to produce those better seeds, and whose motivations are apparently different from those of the capitalist investor.

   3. What would the dumbest policy makers, i.e., GOP leaders, do if confronted with opportunities to keep their country’s technology (superiority is the world they would want to hear) ten years in advance of their evil competitors?

      Science is the only competitive edge left, whether those dumbasses admit it or not, they know it.

      1. It really depends.

         Many of the lower-level idiots really would cut off their noses to spite their faces. Hell, even many of the upper-level ones would; just look at Shrub and stem cell research.

         But the corporate overlords who dance them around by the purse strings will keep things in check to a certain extent. However, even that’s rather limited…basic research doesn’t return quarterly results, so it’ll never be favored over targeted product development research.

         That really sums up an awful lot of our problems: we’re so fucking short-sighted. Never mind if something you do today is going to bite you in the ass a decade from now; if it’ll boost next quarter’s profits, that’s all that matters.

         b&

         1. There should be a campaign for scientists: just say no. They stop working on short term problems or worse, manufacturing opportunities they already know the answer to.

            1. Sadly, if they did that, many would no longer be able to pay their mortgages….

               b&

   4. I think part of the problem in the US is because our scientists here have made great strides in science and technology, lay people claim that knowledge for themselves. The US put astronauts on the moon, I’m a rocked scientist! Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine, I know what’s best for public health. Nearly everyone I talk to thinks this way.

      1. hmmm, maybe I am a rocked scientist. I’m certainly not a rocket scientist.

      2. This is linked to the fact that not all science is equal. Health effects from wine and chocolate are endlessly debated and frequently refuted, but almost never unanimously. The science of complex systems looks like an ambiguous mess of voodoo to pedestrians.

         Yet in many of the hard sciences and robust engineering designs a quantifiable change of less than 1/10000000 can make the difference between not working or working.

6. If all of the hired help on The Hill had a basic understanding of the theory of evolution, I very much doubt any of them would then deny global climate change and the anthropogenic cause thereof or claim that the Ebola virus has become an airborne pathogen. In learning about evolution, one develops the fundamentals to understand the basics of other theories and aspects of science.

7. The Human Universe series is fantastic, and Brian Cox is great in everything he’s done. Bill Nye come off as very honest to me, and isn’t hiding anything…He did a AMA on reddit yesterday, and his answers were exactly what I expected (he really loves dancing too)…Not sure why you get the feeling he’s looking for the limelight…I put him in the same category as NDT, Lawrence Krauss, and the late Carl Sagan. The are spreading the word of science and critical thinking, and are popular with the ‘kids’, what’s not to like?

8. Nye as huckster for a dubious (now discontinued) cleaning product in a YouTube video. rubbed me the wrong way!

   1. Second (and last attempt) at providing a
      link that I hope will work. If it doesn’t work, you can search Nye and activeion on YouTube.

   2. What a sad story – Nye was had, and as a scientifically literate person, he shouldn’t have been. Here is s stinging negative review from an engineer.

      http://www.amazon.com/Activeion-ionator-Portable-Cleaner-Sanitizer/product-reviews/B0031QPQN6

9. I’m pleased to learn that Nye has actually got a few inventions and patents of his own, but I’m a bit puzzled by Bill Nye’s decision to have his wedding in 2006 officiated by pastor Rick Warren, who is openly anti-evolution.
   (The marriage lasted seven weeks and went south extremely fast.)

   1. If I recall correctly, that was to the gal who wrote “Mozart in the Jungle”, an eye-opening book, in reference both to the classical music scene and her personality.

10. I think you’re probably right that American scientific literacy is just about as lousy as it ever was. On the other hand, you can make a statement nearly equivalent to Bill Nye’s that is undoubtedly correct: ordinary people understand a smaller and smaller of their world works. In the Sputnik era, a significant number of ‘ordinary’ people understood how their cars and stoves and even how their radios and TVs worked. Very few people understand how even their microwave oven works, much less their GPS or their LED TV or their computers or phones or most of anything else works.

    1. …a smaller and smaller fraction of how…

    2. Agreed. But in those days you could actually fix a car – or even a comopnent of it like the alternator – or even a TV, and they were sufficiently un-complex and un-integrated – and expensive – that it was worth doing. These days, you throw the TV away and buy a new one cheap, and the ‘mechanic’ just changes the whole gearbox or whatever-it-is, and the owner doesn’t dare touch anything because it’s all run by a computer.

       I *still* insist on fixing my own (older) cars though… but that’s not because I can’t afford to pay someone else, it’s just bloody-mindedness. And because I can. I’m obsolete.

       1. I know this is a bit of a thread derailment, but I hear the complaint about computerized cars from my older acquaintances all the time, but I don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up with it so it just seems normal to me, but I still do all my own repairs. 9 times out of 10 it’s still a mechanical issue, and if it is electronic, the OBD-II reader diagnoses it for you.

          1. I agree the ‘electronics’ tend to put one off, possibly through unfamiliarity. Mechanically, the other major inhibiting factor is the tendency to screw all the mechanicals together into one big lump which is then inserted into the car with no working space around it and hidden from sight under innumerable black plastic covers and buried in pipes and wires, only serviceable by removing the whole lump. Inexcusable when it has a rubber band cam drive that needs replacing at relatively frequent intervals. Some makes are much worse than others for that.

             1. Re: that “serpentine” belt. Used to be, on my ’71 Pontiac LeMans, if the AC compressor seized up, one could cut the belt and the alternator would still run. Surely the powers that be know that. But engineers are the handmaidens of the MBA types.

             2. I was actually talking about cogged rubber cam drive belts, which, if they break, the engine will stop and possibly (in some designs) expensively bend valves. And they have to be replaced every 60,000 to 100,000 miles, while the rest of the motor will typically last for nearly 200,000.

                Other drive belts can be dispensed with in emergency, and anyway if they break they don’t result in instant motor failure and possible damage.

11. Debates between rationalists and rabid religionists are not truly debates and are seldom, if ever, of value. Except, as was predicted, in the case with the Bill Nye and Ken Ham so-called debate, apparently it helped generate the funding for Ham’s newest religious museum/park to be built. “Debates” of this sort are not educationally beneficial. Have you ever heard of a religionist suddenly converting to rationalism at, or after, such a debate?

    1. >“Debates” of this sort are not educationally beneficial. Have you ever heard of a religionist suddenly converting to rationalism at, or after, such a debate?”

       Communicating with those in denial through debates, books, and conversation is our ONLY hope of changing their minds.

    2. I’ve heard of hardly anybody making such a big change in perspective after any couple hour activity. It’s a process, and will take many such activities and reflection. Granted, I don’t think debates are the best format, but I don’t think they’re worthless either. Do you think any of the creationists in the Ham on Nye debate would have voluntarily read WEIT or attended a lecture explaining evolution? How else do you reach those people (and their children)?

12. “Bill Nye really does rub me the wrong way. Yes, I know he’s turned lots of kids onto science, and good for him! But his demeanor just gives me the creeps. And he seems ravenously hungry for the limelight, a form of naked ambition that always puts me off.”

    I wonder whether he’s really turned kids onto science, or merely turned them onto Bill Nye. (It may be that I only ask that because I also think he’s hungry for the limelight, and something about him gives me the creeps too.)

    1. I bet there are some people who find everyone commenting on here a bunch of creeps.

13. Am I missing something, or shouldn’t the title of his book be: Undeniable: Evolution and the “Science” of Creation? Or if he doesn’t write about creationism, but just science: Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of “Creation”

    Regarding your point that teaching evolution is not critical, I strongly disagree (and, frankly, I suspect that you’re being a bit of a contrarian here). Every citizen should have some degree of understanding both of the natural world and of science. Evolution is so fundamental to modern biology and medicine that ignoring it in the curriculum would/does produce uneducated citizens. And we were reminded just this past Tuesday what that leads to.

    1. I think you misunderstand me. OF COURSE kids should be educated about evolution, as it gives them the opportunity to fully appreciate their world and where they came from. What I deny is that a failure to grasp this, or even a failure to properly teach evolution, spells technological death for the U.S. If evolution were omitted from schools, children would suffer intellectually, but I won’t readily assent to the notion that our country would fall to pieces technologically.

       1. Technological advancement is a complex process, of course, and the level of education in the society is only one component of it. When I immigrated to the U.S. from Poland almost 30 years ago, I was struck by the contrast between the achievements of top-level research labs on one hand (I did my post-doc at MIT, and during my time there, went not to one, but to several lab parties on the occasion of a professor winning the Nobel Prize) and the poor level of general education of many ordinary citizens on the other (and I was making comparisons with an impoverished Communist society). The disparity between the top and the bottom of the U.S. society is even greater now than a generation ago. We may still be able to produce an educated elite that can contribute to, or even lead, world-class technological innovation, but the dismal state of American schools in general, and science education in particular, is chipping away at the possibility of having a large, educated middle class that can both contribute to and fully enjoy those technologies. And a growing number of those new technologies (and good jobs associated with them) will be in environmental science, biomedical research and health care, so biology education is key.

          Of course, you know all this, so our opinions probably differ on just where the specific knowledge of evolution fits into this picture. You mentioned the importance of understanding climate science. Well, I personally know creationists who are quite reasonable when taking their children to the best doctors and giving them the benefit of science-based medicine, but when it comes to climate change and protecting the environment, they follow their own understanding of the Bible. God gave us the Earth as some kind of a birthday gift, to use and enjoy. The biosphere, with all the plants and animals in it, was specifically designed to serve humans, so the resources like fossil fuels are going to be there as long as necessary, and global warming is a myth.

          And these people vote in every election.

14. One of the issues, I think, is that in the US the terms of broad popular/public debate over evolution have been framed differently from elsewhere – for reasons that to me seem to be socio-cultural, the US argument is over WHETHER human evolution occurs (especially), not HOW, or the narrative of the evolutionary journey. This is not so to the same extent elsewhere – in the UK, for instance, I gather around 80 percent of the public believe evolution (meaning, largely, human) to be true, whereas in the US the figure is closer to 40 percent, somewhat below the numbers who believe it to be true in Latvia, Bulgaria, Greece and Poland. In fact of the figures I’ve seen only Turkey has a lower popular uptake of belief in evolution (implicitly human) than the US.

    This figure seems so remarkable that to me the explanation has to be found in a socio-cultural difference between the US and the nations from which its cultural heritage derives, such as Britain. However, I also think it’s not particularly worth engaging the argument, because it IS country-specific, and it devolves to the way in which those espousing the various viewpoints validate their own self-worth by alignment to a particular viewpoint. Once a concept is entwined with self in this manner, no amount of ‘reason’ will cause that person to change their minds, and attempts to do so usually provoke irrational anger. Often that becomes couched, later, in intellectualism, but the underlying driver is clear. To me the parameters of the argument, in short, devolve to an expression of some of the basic mechanisms that define the human condition – becoming, indeed, a lens by which we can further examine and understand that nature. And, I might add, from that we might also gain a better insight and understanding into our own past. But that’s another issue.

15. So far, about a dozen states have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), developed by Achieve.

    A framework for K-12 science education was developed by the National Research Council which informed the work of the NGSS developers and writers. Their vision, greatly abridged here, is that the new standards:

    –should engage students with fundamental questions about the world and with how scientists have investigated those questions and arrived at current answers;
    –students should have opportunities to carry out scientific investigations and engineering design projects related to core ideas;
    –by the end of 12th grade, students should have gained sufficient knowledge to be critical consumers of science related to everyday life; and to want to continue to learn more about science throughout their lives.

    There are core ideas for each of the standard disciplines (Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences) and for the new kid on the block (Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science) plus scientific and engineering practices (once referred to as inquiry/scientific inquiry) and crosscutting concepts.

16. I’ll get creamed for this, but Bill Nye really does rub me the wrong way. Yes, I know he’s turned lots of kids onto science, and good for him! But his demeanor just gives me the creeps.

    Then you may appreciate this …

    1. LOL

    2. Boy, I needed that. I agree — LOL.

       1. That was pretty good – I love the one review, “it’s painfully descriptive” and the actor playing Jesse was pretty good too – glad he got to say “bitch”.

          I think Breaking Bad has had a huge cultural influence. I think it would hilarious if, one day in the future, we found out that Breaking Bad had a huge influence on kids wanting to learn more about science. 😀

17. I agree that critical thinking is really important but I think a general science education is crucial in addition to this. It seems our society is only interested in making money – why learn it if there isn’t a direct financial gain to be had with the knowledge. This, to me, is sad and really leaves people not only doing things they hate, but also gambling on what that next money making career is going to be (sometimes impossible to predict).

18. I’m with you on Nye’s motives, his lack of depth, and his weird personality. Hard to see how he would inspire people. But then again, in your Texas Tech post of a few days ago, we saw that media fame (deserved or not) rather than substance is what gets peoples’ attention.

19. Having a good understanding of evolution ought provide an understanding of how and why we are here and an understanding of how morality can arise.
    Both necessary in the push against religious thinking.
    I’n not sure if a lack of knowledge in this area would necessarily spell technological death but the more substantial a base understanding of things the better.
    Teaching critical thinking would indeed be the best fist step, if possible.

    Isaac Asimov wrote a story about a mighty technological society with time travel and gateways to here there and everywhere, powered by a great edifice of machinery and the few unseen technicians that enabled and maintained it all. With commentary on such dependence. I forget the rest.

20. Who was it that you just wrote about? The guy who argues that facts for religious types are different than facts for scientists? I applaud Nye’s efforts but why? If it will keep these people from tying to force their particular fantasy on everyone else (and it isn’t likely to) that’s good. But it’s hard for me to care much about people who see unicorns, magic crystal alignment, or a 6,000 year old earth. And no amount of ‘splaining about radiometric dating will change their mind.

21. Scientists often get criticized for locking themselves in their ivory towers, and not being good communicators with the general public. Nye is a great communicator to the general public, and he gets criticized here for seeking the limelight. I wonder if Coyne’s criticisms of Nye don’t hint at jealousy.

    1. What nonsense! Nye is not a scientist. That is the problem. If you think Jerry would be jealous of a good scientist communicating to the public, how would you explain his consistent admiration and defense of Richard Dawkins, a real scientist who is a tireless and very well known communicator of science to the public? See Jerry’s post today about Dawkins vs EO Wilson for example.

    2. I wondered who would be the first lamebrain to suggest that, a suggestion that goes against my whole history of admiring science popularizers. I would not trade places with Nye for anything.

       You new around here, woodshedder? I say that because you’re apparently not only one of those who not only calls me “Coyne,” but has no idea of how uncivil and arrogant you come off in this, my living-room equivalent.

       Let me add this: it’s rude people like you who sometimes make writing on this website a chore instead of a joy. Please go to some other place where you can insult the host behind your wall of anonymity.

22. I did not learn anything about evolution until college. Zip. Nada. It was an unfortunate position. I feel as though my lack of science education put me at a disadvantage. I’m 32 and just now trying to get through a program that revolves around science because I always doubted my ability. Because of my background, I’ve focused a few of my projects on how to reach those who were also not taught true science.

    That being said, I don’t understand this obsession with pretending creationists are ignorant morons who are incapable of achieving anything. I had a tutor for chemistry and algebra – she was amazing. I presume she was also a creationist but it did not prevent her from teaching math and science. Should be teach biology? Hell no. But being a creationist does not mean you are inept in all subjects.

23. I too found my self scratching my head at Nye’s weird conflation of kids “learning about evolution” and climate change.

    Interpreting his intended meaning as charitably as I can, perhaps he really meant to say Young Earth creationism. This carries along with it all the crazy baggage of believing our planet is only a few thousand years old, which would indeed make it difficult to comprehend geologic timescales well enough to understand the nature and threat of anthropomorphic climate change.

    On the other hand, a professional “science communicator” should really do better at communicating science.

24. I don’t know about any of you, but I can hardly wait to get my copy and find out what Nye wrote in his Chapter 8, titled “My Prom and Sexual Selection”.

    1. Ick. I really don’t want to learn about that. Nye creeps me out a little bit. I don’t know why, he just strikes me as a creeper.

       1. Me too. He’s like Pee-Wee for near-adults. As for wholesome, long live Mr. Wizard!

25. It could already be that the ship has sailed and the argument is no longer important. Did anyone see the previous clip from Colbert’s show on this site?

    That is the reality in our new Congress and the last thing on their minds is the education of the kids.

26. I’d say (similar to Prof CC’s comment) that evolution is only of very minor relevance to the immediate future of our ‘civilisation’ and whether it survives. Of vital importance would be climate science, physics (with its fallout into electronics), chemistry and materials science – all of these things are completely neutral with regard to evolution vs creationism. I’d also say economics might be crucial, if it was a science and if it ever worked.

    Medicine and the development of drugs (which is tied up with organic chemistry and physiology) are possibly peripherally influenced in that evolution can explain some of the more regrettable features of our anatomy.

    But I’d say the scientific method is of far greater significance to teach.

    One could almost make a (perverse) case that teaching evolution is bad in that it provokes the Creationists to attack all of science in an attempt to discredit evolution. But of course if the crazies didn’t have evolution to attack, they’d find something else like, say, Global Warming to target…

    So could the US ‘lose’ evolution from the syllabus without imperilling its future technological status? Probably so. It could equally of course lose all the arts and humanities. That doesn’t mean it would be a good thing.

    1. “I’d say (similar to Prof CC’s comment) that evolution is only of very minor relevance to the immediate future of our ‘civilisation’ and whether it survives.”

       What inhibits the progress of our civilization is not the lack of understanding of evolution per se, but what stands behind it — the distrust of science and outright rejection of objective scientific facts.

       As someone once said, facts are the currency democracy. And you can’t have a properly functioning democracy with the general public not being able to assess the facts.

       1. I’d agree with most of that.

          I’d say a lot of the distrust of science is motivated by religious reasons – in that science has no time for ‘miracles’ and falsifies most (all?) of the accounts in the Bible.

          I am annoyed when YECs attempt to distort sciences in order to make the OT appear literally ‘true’. Like the ‘changing speed of light’ argument, for example.

    2. Of vital importance would be climate science

       All the secondary effects of climate change are evolutionary — and it’s those secondary effects that’re set to kill us. It’s an artifact of evolution that our crops grow in particular combinations of temperate zones and soil compositions. Similarly, the pests that damage our crops, the diseases that infect us, the jellification of the oceans…all inextricably linked to Evolution.

       If “climate science” is, in your words, “of vital importance,” then so, too, must be Evolution.

       b&

       1. Well, that’s how we got where we are now. But – to make an analogy – if we’re wandering around lost, we have two important questions – where are we?, and how do we get out of this? Trying to work out how we got here is of minor importance (although a fascinating occupation once we’re safe and have access to Google Maps).

          It’s not an either-or thing but, if I was in a lost colony and had to help engineer our way out of the predicament, I doubt that a knowledge of evolution would be referred to very often. Any more than knowing why gravity works. (Knowing what gravity does – yeah, important. Why it does what it does? – a question for some other time).

          I don’t want to argue this corner too strongly because I personally find evolution fascinating and blindingly obvious, in principle at least. But – to make another analogy – take music. Would music be any use? Not everything worth knowing or doing has to be useful in all circumstances.

27. “Yet the U.S.’s science education and accomplishments are still peerless, and people come here from all over the world to study science.”

    One can only wonder where the US would be today without all the people who come to America to study science…

28. I have to say I really disagree with you on the issue of whether it’s important for children to understand evolution through natural selection. My view is certainly colored by my work (I write science and history books for children), but I think basic science literacy is important for any educated person, and if you don’t understand the foundational concept of modern biology, you are scientifically illiterate. Evolution through natural selection isn’t all that hard for a child to understand. I want all young people to exit school with a basic understanding of the process of evolution, just as I want them all to leave with a basic understanding of the Constitution and their rights as citizens.

29. 🙊

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