Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka "the science guy," if grownups want to "deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them."

-- Transcript:
Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we're the world's most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in that, it holds everybody back, really.

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It's like, it's very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place.

As my old professor, Carl Sagan, said, "When you're in love you want to tell the world." So, once in a while I get people that really—or that claim—they don't believe in evolution. And my response generally is "Well, why not? Really, why not?" Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution. I mean, here are these ancient dinosaur bones or fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star but they're at a different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent.

And I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world, in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't make your kids do it because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need people that can—we need engineers that can build stuff, solve problems.

It's just really hard a thing, it's really a hard thing. You know, in another couple of centuries that world view, I'm sure, will be, it just won't exist. There's no evidence for it.

Directed / Produced by
Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Alan Clarke]

@matchlock "I'm not angry at NASA [for searching for extraterrestrial intelligence]"

Then looking for "non-random patterns of electromagnetic emissions" must have been worthwhile. What kind of non-random patterns indicate intelligence?

[Alan Clarke]

@matchlock "I went to Sunday School in my younger days"

Judging from your present condition, you probably would have fared better if you never went. I knew a guy who got gonorrhea. He didn't want to see a doctor so he acquired some tetracycline illegally and treated himself. He took too low of a dosage so the gonorrhea came back but more virulent. Low dosages of Sunday School (especially when tainted with bad teachers) will often make the disease more acute.

[RogerS4JC]

@Alan Clarke

Refuting the forum's court Jester provides mild entertainment but lacks a certain dignity. The information is good though.

[Alan Clarke]

@matchlock "Richard Sternberg [is biased]."

If you discounted every scientist who possesses (or possessed) an ideology that affected his judgement, you would have to discount all scientists.

"There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination." - Daniel Dennett

[Alan Clarke]

@matchlock "It makes no sense other than to imply a supernatural belief might help us find a better word for "read""

Diversions & excuses are not an answer. Thus far you have failed to find a single word better than "read" to express in non-teleological terms what ribosomes ACTUALLY do to mRNA. Surely there is some word that Huxley or Darwin invented to alleviate this embarrassment. Why not invent a word then give us the shortest definition you can think of. E.g., "noread", "dumbread", etc.

[Zach Skabelund]

Agreed.

[g68unit]

What happens when people become "intellectuals" in their own eyes is that they start to think that they are smarter than god. A form of pride.. Which I'm telling you now will be the destruction of our country.

[g68unit]

unsolid. He's basically saying people who don't believe in God are not smart. Also, I have spent years of my life living out of the country. If he thinks that the United States is the only country whole world who rejects evolution, he's an IDIOT!!! Go to South America!!! It is overwhelmingly christian, and a huge majority will tell you that humans were created by god, not by some chance event from microorganisms.. Which really has little scientific evidence to back it up.

[g68unit]

I lost a lot of respect for Bill Nye just now. "We need engineers who can solve things.." What? I work at a company that specializes in building optical planes, thermal links, and many other things for NASA space crafts. I'd say about 90% of the workers are scientists and engineers. A large majority of them are Christian and believe in god, consequentially in creationism is well. They are extremely bright and intelligent people making great scientific contributions... His argument is completely

[Alan Clarke]

@matchlock "The reduction to zero bp is a theoretical limit"

Allentoft et al. derived their figures by measuring actual fossils: "The half-life of DNA in bone: measuring decay kinetics in 158 dated fossils"

Here is their conclusion: "even under the best preservation conditions at –5°C, our model predicts that no intact bonds (average length = 1 bp [base pair]) will remain in the DNA ‘strand’ after 6.8 Myr."