Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution Deniers

[kong]

Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' Hits Evolution Deniers
In a clip posted to online knowledge forum Big Think via YouTube, former children's show host Bill Nye spoke out against the denial of evolution, saying such views harm young people especially and hamper scientific progress.

Nye, who hosted the educational show "Bill Nye the Science Guy," which aired on PBS Kids from 1993 through 1998, made the statements in a clip posted online on Thursday, and has since been viewed over one million times. In the clip, Nye praises the United States for its contribution to technological innovation, but says that the denial of evolution is unique to the country.

"People still move to the United States. And that's largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science," Nye said in the clip. "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," he added.

Nye made a three-stop tour through New Hampshire earlier this summer to tout President Obama's education policies while making a push for science and engineering programs. He has endorsed Obama's reelection bid.

In the clip, Nye said that one's "world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don't believe in evolution."

"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," he said.

Nye then goes on to urge adults not to deny the teaching of evolution to young people.

"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 a hard 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."




http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/bill-nye-science-guy-hits-evolution-deniers-123047918--abc-news-tech.html

[kong]

Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientist and children's television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters.

"I say to the grownups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it,'" said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series "Bill Nye the Science Guy."

The video, titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children," was posted on Thursday by the online knowledge forum Big Think to YouTube and had netted more than 1.3 million views as of Monday.

In it Nye said widespread public doubt in the scientific concept of evolution -- which holds that human beings and all other forms of life developed from a process of random genetic mutation and natural selection -- would hinder a country long renowned for its innovation, intellectual capital and a general grasp of science.

"When you have a portion of the population that doesn't believe in (evolution) it holds everybody back, really," he said.

According to a Gallup poll that surveyed 1,012 adults in May, 46 percent of Americans can be described as creationists for believing that God created humans in their present form at some point within the last 10,000 years.

Education advocates have argued for decades over what children should be taught in public schools in regard to the formation of the universe, life and humans.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that requiring biblical creation to be taught in public schools alongside evolution was unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment separation between church and state.

In April, a law was passed that protects teachers in Tennessee who wish to critique or analyze what they view as the scientific weaknesses of evolution, making it the second state, after Louisiana, to enable teachers to more easily espouse alternatives to evolution in the classroom.

Nye said that while many adults may believe in creationism, children should be taught evolution in order to understand science. Absent a grasp of evolution, he said, "You're just not going to get the right answers." And he called evolution the "fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology."

Teaching children the building blocks of science is essential for the country's future, he added, saying, "We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future."

Nye's popular show, produced by Disney's Buena Vista Television, aired from September 1993 to June 1998 on PBS and was also syndicated to local television stations.



http://news.yahoo.com/bill-nye-science-guy-says-creationism-not-good-050140422.html

[kong]

To the Minds of Babes: When Children’s Hosts Tackle Social Issues
The Internet was abuzz on Friday with video of children’s science TV host Bill Nye laying down a mellow, low-key dismissal of creationism on the YouTube channel for brain-teasing website Big Think.

Calling creationism nothing less than unfounded beliefs “completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe,” Nye ends with an appeal to creationist parents to avoid passing the anti-evolution notion along to their kids.


“I say to the grownups, if you want to deny evolution and live in your world …that’s fine,” Nye says in the video. “But don’t make your kids do it, because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and tax payers for the future.”
To viewers of a certain age, the Big Think video was an eye-opening new view of a man once considered in near-constant threat of incinerating his own eyebrows on his children’s TV show. Formerly a gangly funnyman in a lab coat and rubber glasses just big enough to protect his huge, goggling eyes, here was a more sagacious man who seemed tired and fed up, as if he’d thrown in a towel and just said, “Enough, I can’t take it any more. Honestly, people.”

The bowtie was the same, but above it on Nye’s giraffe-like neck, a wizened and rumpling face talked in front of a stark white background. This serious new Nye’s dismissal of creationism is so presumed and absolute that its hard not to take notice.

The video looks to have appeared on the Big Think site in February or March. The site is an ideas place—hence the name—and having posted his verbal manifesto in that realm of free thought, Nye might have hoped his video would have been digested without a rash of creationary blowback.

Sorry, but evolution has yet to progress that far. From the comments:

“In the beginning God created...” We need no more proof than that. But it's okay to live in denial of Him, just make sure you take Bill Nye with you when you stand before Him and answer as to why you did not believe.
(ltsministries13 seconds ago )

Please read the book: “The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions.” It is written by a scientist who much smarter than this guy. (us601308 in reply to BlattGaming 28 seconds ago)

Even though the “we are not from apes” hammer has fallen, Nye can take comfort in the empirical knowledge that he’s far from being the only kids’ show host to step into the social sphere. Nye’s appeal for scientific primacy is one of several examples of the impact children’s TV hosts can have.

Look: here’s a young Mr. Rogers in 1969 giving the most measured, heartfelt speech ever delivered on the floor of Congress in a desperately sincere plea for children’s programming. And if ever there was a man who did work to raise the nation’s youth awareness of people with disabilities, it was Fred Rogers.

Also look at Jim Henson’s legacy. The late Muppet-creator’s foundation, The Jim Henson Foundation, gives grants to artists and puppeteers, and this year backed a puppet play called Who’s Hungry – Santa Monica that is designed to “give a voice and a face to hunger,” according to the award description.

“Basically, we are telling the stories of homeless and hungry people from a particular town, neighborhood, area…and rendering them in the form of puppet theater,” says writer and producer Dan Froot in an introductory video about the play.

Other children’s TV hosts seem to advance social causes just by being themselves—you probably missed this story from a couple of years ago about a BBC kids’ show host who caught flack because she only had one arm—and some parents thought that might scare the kids.

Also, here’s Bob Ross feeding a baby squirrel. You’re welcome.

The point is that children’s TV hosts, though often cutesy and prone to singing about feelings, sometimes find themselves at the nexus of social causes.

And in Nye’s case, popping up at the place were education and belief intersect, the issue makes headlines all the time.

Do you think creationsim is a belief better left behind? Or do you have an open mind to it?



http://news.yahoo.com/minds-babes-children-hosts-tackle-social-issues-180457209.html

[kong]

3 different viewpoints on the same arguement..........
is Bill Nye the science guy going to become Bill Nye the unemployed Atheist..............
or Bill Nye the disgruntled Disney employee