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Bill Nye: WTF?

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By Kevin Wilson

I have a great deal of respect for Bill Nye.

As a young boy, I was intensely curious about the world around me. I had to know how everything worked. I had to know why the sky was blue, how cars worked, what atoms were, and a million other questions that my teachers were ill equipped to answer.

His show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, along with a couple other PBS shows, were instrumental in teaching me that, not only was it okay to be curious about the world around me, but that learning could be fun. It could even, dare I say, be cool. My other grade school peers disagreed vehemently, but when they were struggling with their times tables, I was learning about Newton’s Laws of Motion. And if you don’t think those will come in handy in a schoolyard scuffle, you were probably part of the problem.

Ever since his show went off the air, Mr. Nye has been one of a handful of public figures pushing the idea that science is more than your least favorite subject in school. He, along with a handful of others, have been slowly pummeling the idea into the public consciousness, and it’s safe to say that it’s been a rousing success. 

Mr. Rogers was skeptical once, too. So I took his jacket!

Mr. Rogers was skeptical once, too. So I took his jacket!

Mr. Nye is something of a rarity among the science community. He’s bombastic, charismatic, and passionate to a fault. He can take complex ideas and explain them in such a way that they not only make sense, but that they’re interesting. In my mind, he sits on a pedestal with a few others, such as Michio Kaku, and Adam Savage.

That’s why it is with a heavy heart that I ask the following question: Mr. Nye, what the fuck?

In a recent video interview, the subject of bringing criminal charges against climate change deniers was brought up. Mr. Nye had this to say:

“Was it appropriate to jail the guys from Enron? We’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on?…As a taxpayer and voter, the introduction of this extreme doubt about climate change is affecting my quality of life as a public citizen… So I can see where people are very concerned about this, and they’re pursuing criminal investigations as well as engaging in discussions like this….That there is a chilling effect on scientists who are in extreme doubt about climate change, I think that is good.”

I would link to the original article, but the Washington Times is a cesspool of popups and ads that it takes a high end gaming rig just to load the page. My poor little laptop barely survived the experience, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

At any rate, Mr. Nye has drawn a line in the sand.

On one side of that line stands those who accept the current consensus on climate change, and on the other side, criminals.

I understand his frustration. For many in the science community, climate change is the single greatest threat facing mankind right now. They believe that the world is on the cusp of irreversible, irreparable harm at the hands of humanity, and that if something isn’t done quickly, we run the serious risk of destroying it.

Whether or not you agree with them matters not one whit. They believe that climate change is going to take our pale blue dot floating through space and wreck it. And then they see the oil companies, among others, dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into trying to spread doubt about the accepted narrative, and it’s working. I’d be willing to bet that a fair few of the readers of Unapologetically American either think climate change is a load of crap, or that the actual threat is being blown out of proportion.

In their minds, the future of humanity is being put at risk so people can turn a short turn profit.

Again, it matters not one whit whether you agree with them. I’m not trying to start a debate on whether or not climate change is legit, because we’ll be here all day and won’t solve a damn thing. I’m just laying out the groundwork for my next point: when science stops being about right and wrong and starts being about good and evil, it stops being science.

Throughout history, our understanding of the world has been rocked time and time again by radical thinkers who bucked the common consensus and went their own way. Modern science is built around the notion that no idea is sacrosanct, that we should constantly question everything. When a new theory is proposed, it is the responsibility of the scientific community to do everything in their power to disprove it. They run experiments and check the results, and any deviation from what was expected must be accounted for and explained, and the results must be replicated time and time again before a theory even begins to be taken seriously.

The default of the scientific community is and always should be skepticism.

To foster that sort of environment, dissent is vital.

Even if those who deny climate change turn out to be wrong, even if it turns out they’re just shills, selling their name for a paycheck, they are still a vital part of the system. Without dissent, the greatest minds of our time are just shouting into an echo chamber. AmericanHustleInstaPost1

To threaten those that would challenge the paradigm with legal action is not just immoral, it’s the start of a slippery slope that will cause incalculable damage to the future of humanity. Scientists, whether they’re noble crusaders or charlatans, need to be able to voice their opposition to the accepted narrative. If they’re just idiots, it falls on the rest of the community to make that known, and to refute their ideas in the public forum. If there’s even a chance they might be right, however, their ideas must be subjected to the same rigorous experimentation that any other idea would be. If the data supports the theory, the paradigm shifts. If it doesn’t, then they were wrong and that’s that. We move on a little smarter and a little better for it.

So Mr. Nye, I beg you: please stop this nonsense. You’ve been a public advocate for science for as long as I can remember, and your influence is very real. People listen to you. If you say we should start criminalizing climate change denial, it may very well happen, and we can’t afford to set even one foot on that path. Humanity can’t afford that. So please. Knock it the fuck off.

The post Bill Nye: WTF? appeared first on Unapologetically American.


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