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The Science Guy Returns
hende_jman writes "When I was in high school, the dry science videos that I watched in my classes made me miss the silly and sometimes irreverent Bill Nye the Science Guy. So I was excited to read in the latest issue of Wired that everyone's favorite Science Guy is coming out with a new show, The Eyes of Nye where he tackles some more serious issues like addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change."
Oh God, get that image out of my mind!
Bill nye the science guy! bill bill bill!
Can a science guy really know about these topics?
everyone's favorite Science Guy
I thought Mr. Wizard was far more popular. Most likely especially with the crowd here.
.. But I think Mr. Wizard was more fun :)
Bill Nye was the best science teacher because he was also a comedian. I remember seeing him once on some old sketch comedy show (Almost Live?) where he talked about his girlfriend from hell or something.
Incidentally, my 8th grade science teacher looked almost exactly like Bill Nye.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
I gave him a copy of my TIMIT CD-ROM from the Linguistic Data Consortium, and he accepted it! No other television personality would have been likely to do that, in my estimation.
Thinking of bill "tackling sex" is just getting me all excited to!
Bill Nye the Science Guy was great. It was a lot better than listening to some old hag in class.
XeRo
I for one welcome back our ("now more serious") Science Overlord.
"For Great Justice."
There's something disturbing about the image of a pasty, thin nerd in a bow tie talking about sex.
Oh god, is that why my wife grimaces whenever we make love??
I loved that show when it was on. Just comical. Even my parents found it amusing to watch. It was educational while very entertaining with it's bizarre humor.
Bill Nye is drab and boring by comparison. Then again, what do you expect from Disney...
Why does this Nye guy always rhyme his show's byeline with his name like he's supa-fly? Why? WHY?! ....oh. sorry.
It's TV. People don't want serious science, people want entertainment. There's a reason the Mythbusters blow something up each episode!
Speaking of which, I wonder how much that show's success had to do with exec's decision to bring Nye back.
Wow. Addicted clones having sex are bringing about climate change?
I can't wait for this show!
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Don Herbert -- still alive and functioning enough to have done a pretty fun interview last year -- hasn't been on the air on a regular basis for a couple of decades, so only a portion of /.ers will remember him.
/.ers watched Bill Nye.
OTOH, chances are both young and old
Stefan
The sound that comes from it sounds like someone is pulling a hit out of a bong.
I was going to order a shirt and I forgot.
Worst Sig Ever
Apparently it was too hard to actually link it in the post? http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.04/play.html ?pg=4
He even made the sundial used on the Mars Rovers.
PimpMyMazda.com - Crazy mods to a 2002 Mazda Protege DX.
Even though I liked a good many of them - I hope they skip the psuedo-music videos in this series.
Then again... if they could get the likes of They Might Be Giants and U2 working on it, instead of poor B-52's impersonations...
Ryan Fenton
At least someone will finally be addressing the ways in which our clone sex addiction is leading to global climate changes.
Seemed like a pretty cool guy. Even after his speech, he asked to be part of the line where graduates walked to get their diplomas and shake hands with everybody though he was under no obligation to do so. RPI class of '99.
I would love to know how they will extend "DON'T DO IT!" out to 30 minutes.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
I have to say I liked Beekman more then Bill Nye. Beekman had the "Mad Scientist" feel to him, while Bill Nye was the nerdy and geeky scientist, complete with bow tie. Mr. Wizard was kinda like your grandpa who knew all sorts of neat stuff and you knew he could do so much more cool stuff if mom wasn't so uptight about breaking out the propane tank and the fireworks.
(And if you think this is off topic you need to check up on your Bill Nye history)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I was surprised to see the show times list missing CA stations. :(
:(
Also, Mozilla v1.7.6 doesn't render the list correctly.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
In the UK, we have Johnny Ball - I remember watching his shows in the 1970s and 80s - he was just ***sooo** enthusiastic about his topics - he made science fun as well as informative.
AT&ROFLMAO
Bill Nye has been quite active in the outreach efforts for the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. Back in the summer of 2003, at a launch party, I had the pleasure of sharing a few drinks with him on the beach one evening, and he was telling me about his ideas for this show. It sounded very cool - Mr. Nye is very insightful and is rightly concerned about a lot of these serious issues.
A side note - he really seems to hate people making a big fuss over him being "the science guy" (then again with that annoying theme song, who wouldn't?). He's just a very sharp guy who has a lot of interest in science and outreach. I think he'll be quite capable at holding the attention of adults.
Also, when he was telling me about the show, it was originally entitled "Through the Eyes of Nye," I wonder why they changed it...
I lost my respect for Bill Nye when went on a ride at Epcot called "Universe of Enegry". The ride was sponsored by Exxon, and narrated by Bill Nye and Ellen Degeneres (sp?). Anyway, it was very clear that someone at Exxon had written the script. It totally ruined Bill Nye for me.
-1 (Troll) is antihammer
Bring back Beekman's World and then we'll be talking... but Bill Nye is awesome, I'm just a complainer.
I write code.
Picture it:
Bill Nye as host.
Mr. Wizard as the august commentator, put on when gravitas is called for.
Beekman as the demonstrator.
Bill Nye is a phony. The real good stuff was Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert). He really got into stuff and didn't use fart humor.
but I want Mr. Wizard to make a return.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It just wouldn't be the same without them. However, imdb doesn't show them as being part of the cast. Hopefully, this show will help cram some science into kids again, but who wants to take bets as to how long it will be before Creationists or other anti-science conservatives attack the show for claiming that Earth is 4 billion years old, we evolved from rodents, and that the Sun is the center of our solar system? I'm betting it will happen in the first season given the bad state of science today. Maybe this will even prevent the next generation from turing into a bunch of New Age hippies wearing crystal and Kabbalah threads.
--
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Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
For anyone interested, Bill Nye will be speaking at the Skeptics Society meeting on April 24. Details here.
Meetings are at Cal Tech (Pasadena, CA)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
I hope he doesn't act the same way while talking about sex or addiction...
blegh!
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
BILLLLLLLLLLLLLL NYEEEE THE SCIENCE GUY! Oh, the days when I used to watch that, then thoses bastards at PBS stopped airing the reruns! DAMN THEM!
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
Addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change?! This guy has a lot of personal issues! I guess nerds are still members of the human race. For all the idealists commited to science, they are still subject to the same frailties of any other ordinary person.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
I went to his site and checked the showtimes, hopefully they just aren't all there yet.
Or maybe, Bill Nye is on 4 stations in Georgia, and none in the northeast.
Beakman's World was more entertaining and more informative than either of those...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Bill Nye was a bit after my time, but does anyone remember Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon? Apparently he was around even when my parents were growing up, on NBC.
w iz/watchmrwiz.htm
Check out this site: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/watchmr
for some good history on Don Herbert, the real name of Mr. Wizard.
Here is his official page, which says Don operates the site himself! Cool.
John Susek
Global warming isn't just nature running its course; global warming is a condition caused by human ignorance and apathy. It's something we can change if we CHOOSE to do so, though we're currently CHOOSING to just let it get warmer so we can enjoy our SUVs and WalMarts. (Which both have air conditioning, so why would we care?)
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Hopefully somebody will Torrent it, because I've always been a fan of Bill Nye.
Actually, I'd be interested on his take on filesharing - he's always been into innovation, so I bet he thinks it's good.
Actually, if you RTFA, you learn that Nye thinks sex's main function is to keep germs and parasites at bay; that is, reprocing ensures mankind mont be killed by some virus.
Beakman's world was a much better science show.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" --Salvor Hardin
Beakman was always better than Nye. How can you not love a show with a guy in a giant rat suit?
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
Freaky Porn King Guy!
After seeing Bill Nye do a PBS documentary on shuttle astronauts (very well done and not over the top like science guy) as well as seeing Bill testify before Congress, I knew then that Bill deserved his own science show someday.
Way to go Bill! You've come a long way from "Speed Walker", wiggling your ass in tight shorts superhero costume for laughs on "Almost Live"
Times were different back then. No PC nonsense, and his science demonstrations were always geared to practical things of use to awkward young science fans growing up in the conformist 1950s.
Like the time Mr. Wizard showed you how to perform a prefontal lobotomy on a school bully using a #2 pencil, an American History text book, and a pipe cleaner.
The guest star / subject was "Whitey" from Leave it to Beaver. He was never the same after that. Of course, what actually slowed him down -- the operation or the home-brewed benzine-based anesthesia -- wasn't clear.
Beekman had its highlights but I prefered Bill Nye back in the day.. Mr Wizard was cool and is of course a classic, but a smidge boring at times. Mr. Lizard on the other hand.. He's the best of them all! Timmy: "Gee Mr. Lizard, what happens when I put nitroglycerin in a blender?" ... moments later
Mr Lizard: "Looks like were gunna need another Timmy!"
Bill spoke at my Alma Mater (RPI) years ago.
He said to remember three things if anything:
1 Use the metric system
2 Never write a memo longer than 1 page
3 Make sure you enjoy what you plan on doing for the rest of your life
Months later I saw him on a panel hosted by Bill Maher with Craig Barret, Pen and Teller, and Peggy Noonan (i think). He was complaining about internet porn affecting people's lives. People laughed, but he was totally serious.
Fascinating man. Even in my late 20's I enjoyed his show on tape as a way to decompress after a long day workin on my PHD
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
...that I donated $50 to my local PBS station. Growing up watching this show proved to be far more valuable than most "dull" classroom environments i've encountered. I learned the order of the planets and newton's laws of physics when I was 10 years old because of this show. It made "understanding" what we were learning actually fun and now that I have a 5 year old daughter, I'm glad he's back into educating and hopefully making learning fun again.
watch it... watch it..... THERE it is!!
does anybody know who this might have been? I think he was some crazy old guy with white hair, if that helps... :)
Bill Nye, coupled with The Magic School Bus, set me up with enough knowledge as a child that I was set in all my science classes up to the 9th grade. When I have kids I'll be sure to buy both series for them ;-)
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
...and I guess it will have to do until I can get Dr. Julius Sumner Miller and Connections on DVD.
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
The Onion reports the tragic news: Science Guy Bill Nye Killed In Massive Vinegar/Baking-Soda Explosion.
(Yah, it probably requires a fee. Pay it. The Onion's archives are worth it. *grin*)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Wow! Nice to meet you Mr. President.
The Eyes of Nye where he tackles some more serious issues like addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change."
Why is he only focusing on works of the Satan?
OK OK, climate change isn't the work of the devil... except for the story of "climate change".
Whenever someone would do something potentially dangerous on the show (even slightly dangerous), the deep-voiced announcer guy would say "careful," almost subliminally. I surely can't be the only one who's encorporated that little gem in his day to day geeky reference-slinging. Can I? And, does anyone else remember another sciency show on PBS in which a very insane-seeming old man with crazy hair would at turns scribble on a giant chalk board (or dry erase board) and operate devices and chemicals on a large lab table? I remember it being over my head, as a child, but still fascinating to watch, like C-SPAN for the Thundercats crowd.
Well, when I was in highschool, I would watch him on seattle's comedy show "Almost Live". Aside from the occasional science experiment, I mostly remember him wearing blue tights and chasing down criminals. I still have nightmares from his butt wiggling back and forth.
Theories are a part of science . . . theories with significant evidence are accepted as likely to be true. Others with less evidence are perhaps somewhat debatable. This is all part of the Scientific Method
If you would rather have children watch science shows that eshew theory, there would be precious little science in the show. . . it would be a show about facts. And facts aren't science . . . Science is analysis, postulating theories, experimentation, drawing conclusions, verifying results, and other skills that require higher level thinking skills.
I commend Bill Nye for showing children theory and higher level thinking skills . . . but perhaps you would rather that he simply go over multiplication tables and other "facts" on his show . . .
I remember watching that back in the olden days on PBS...heck, our teacher even had some of those videos in our Seventh Grade class (last year).
But our science teacher this year is incredibly boring and extremely corny.
But "You go to school with the science teacher you have, not the one you may want at a later time"
Anyways, it's good to have Bill back on.
BILL, BILL, BILL, BILL!!!
I even have the PC game for that show that I played when I was 8 or 9...something about an asteroid hitting the earth and a planetary defense system being too lazy to deflect it.
Come to think of it, I never DID beat that game.
I've been noticing a good number of Slashdot posts lately featuring this "[tt]" string somewhere in the text, usually in the subject; sometimes as above, just bracketing an existing "tt" in a normal word, and other times as a preface, as in "[tt]: Some subject goes here".
Is this some new Slashdotism I'm not familair with? My first assumption was that it had something to do with troll tagging ala "first posts" but not all the messages seem to be trolls, not even most of them...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Anyone listen to Dr. Science on NPR? (Remeber, he's not a real doctor. He has a Master's degree.... in science!)
-Valiss
Beakman kicked ass. Lester was awesome. Bill Nye was just boring in comparison.
Let me know when David Stringer http://www.davidstringer.ca/ brings back Acme School of Stuff.
Geeks, nerds, come together...Beakman and Bill Nye were both cool science shows only we dorks watched while everyone else played with their Power Rangers.
I had the chance to meet Bill Nye back in 2003 at the prelaunch party for the first Mars rover launch in Florida. He was going on about the possibility of water on Mars and some other interesting stuff. He sure looked like he was going strong then... actually I was quite impressed.
I watched him in my younger days and it is teh awesome. Corny at times, but I loved it all the same.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Bill Nye rules. Period. End of discussion.
Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Bugs are good for building character in the user.
If you're looking for dry science videos, try the avgeeks . . . a collection of over 14000 dry videos like those cheesy ones made for high school students in the 60's
I really wonder how credible these shows are when they are the equivalent of CSI.
While it's true that CSI is pretty much based on real science, it's been fictionalized and dolled up to make it 'fun' and entertaining. It's fast paced and skips far too many little details that is the glue of real science, that it's essentially brain candy.
I like CSI, but it seems each episode is the same thing hashed over and over.
The real science of chemistry and physics, etc, drones on with the formulas and equations and for most would be tediously boring. Anything less just creates an audience of neophites easily distracted or moving on to other brain candy like shows such as monster garage or mythbusters.
If you can't find science fun on its own merits, I don't see how a program like "bill nye the science guy" or equivalent will be anything more than edu-tainment.
It's a joke people.
Bill Nye the sex guy!!
Sounds like alot of jealousy in the scientific community.
How is climate change a personal frailty? Or cloning even? Being a eunuch nerd, I don't have much problem with the sex part. I'm not commited so much to science as transhumanism--getting to the point where we don't have the same frailties of an ordinary human.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
Brought to mind a rather ecentric chemistry prof. To demonstrate Potential Energy he jumped off a table onto the floor. Sure woke some people up. He also had lots of corny jokes, e.g. What is a child's favorite compound on Christmas Eve? Nickelous Nitride.
Seemed a bit of a nut but kept us awake and thinking, opposed to the extremely dry teacher I had a couple terms later, who could put caffeine to sleep.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
He did get elected Vice President of the Planetary Society in January. That has to be worth something.
www.DIYTVAntennas.com
How about professor Honey Dew and Beaker?
Now there was a science team.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
For me, Bill Nye will always be Speed Walking to fight crime, or singing children's songs about his bitchy ex-wife. That "Almost Live" shit was hilarious, especially him and that short bald guy who was in every sketch.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Come on now people.
The ultimate TV science guy was Professor Julius Sumner Miller.
He was a wild haired, wild eyed scientist whose catchphrase was 'Why is it so?'.
I had the fortune of meeting Bill Nye back when I was in high school, at an ice skating rink in Lynnwood, WA. My friends and I were there and we noticed Bill Nye, who we knew from the local "Almost Live" show, where he frequently did his "Science Guy" bit.
He took the time to come over when my friends and I flagged him down and he got into a rap about why golf balls have dimples, which led to a discussion of the merits of airplanes with a swept-forward wing design. His speech was spur of the moment and fascinating, even for a bunch of high school students.
He is a terrific ice skater, by the way.
End of Line
LOL!!!
Creativity abounds.
Is there still an animatronic robot Bill Nye talking about dinosaurs and fossil fuels at Disney World?
You can't take the sky from me...
Good to see him back to his own show from being the "scientific commentator" on Battlebots, remember that show hosted by a bunch of has-been wrestlers complete with hot babes interviewing the robot building nerds?
Yup, huge step up to sex and drug addictions.
...with ira flatow!
back when PBS used to be cool...
Well he is a colleague with other 'scientists' from Hollywood like Steven Spilberg, who are also involved with Planetary Society.
There's a blast from the past reference there, Bill!
Say hi to Steve Jarrett for me!
And don't get caught biking the wrong way around the lake!
What's there to explain? The world's gonna melt away in 100 years, and everyone agrees.
I've got about 3 VHS tapes filled with Beakman episodes.
I stumbled upon the show during an all-night marathon one year and was instantly hooked. Unfortunately, the damn show aired WAAAAY to f'ing early in the morning. That's probably why it didn't get the viewers the network hoped for and why it was ultimately cancelled... or so the FAQ suggests.
Taping it was the only way I got to enjoy it.
What I'd really like though is a complete DVD collection of Beakman's World. The Best of Beakman's World DVD just isn't enough.
In the meantime, I guess I'll digitize my VHS tapes
addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change.
Hey, that's a typical Friday night!
Of course he is not a scientist, nobody claims that, not even him. Although his shows are shallow (television is NEVER deep) they are well done and make (some) kids love science, which is a good thing.
Nye might have been okay, but Beakman rocked.
"The Knights That Say ... 'Nye'"
Pat Paulson as "Mr. Wizard", made science very enjoyable to watch.
This seems to be mostly a US thing. For example Sir Fred Hoyle wrote a few Science Fiction novels and this did not hurt his reputation as a theoretical physicist and astronomer, he was even knighted. He was never taken seriously by biologists, who consider that his panspermia theory is false
bill nye is an asshole
pat cashman rules
blah blah blah
I hate Bill Nye. I used to love him till one day it dawned on me that he uses bad science. He stated that humans use 100% of their brain, not the 10% everyone else was quoting because, "Just think about it. We do so much stuff." Forgive me, but a "Just think about it." criteria for science fact isn't enough justification.
This is like saying Cisco routers use 100% of its space all the time. But if you know anything about Cisco routers, they have so much redundancy you could take a shotgun to it and blow out half the motherboard and it would probably still work.
After I realized he was wrong with one science fact, I started watching with a skeptical eye and realized he makes so many more misstatements based on bad science.
Please, make Bill Nye go away!
I read his book on mathematics of evolution. His mathematical skills are amazing, in a few pages he derives results ontained by biologists without deep knowledge of mathematics in hundreds of pages. Unfortunately mathematics is not enough, his panspermia theory is incorrect.
If you guys are so looking forward to his show, please do us all a favor and show your support by watching it by a legitimate means, instead of distributing it by BitTorrent or some other P2P network. You know, so that the show is actually valuable in terms of viewership and advertising to the media networks that produce it. Then they have a reason to not cancel it.
*Cough* Enterprise *Cough*
James Burke is by far my favorite Science Guy
His Connections series are fascinating. I wish they weren't so blood expensive though.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
I always thought it would be fun to take Bill Nye's brain and put it into a robot. Then take Mr. Wizard's brain and put it into another robot.
Then make them battle on the surface of some far off desert planet.
My guess is, Mr. Wizard would win, but Nye would have fresher looking moves. Nye's downfall would be in showboating it up for the crowd, while Mr. Wizard would methodically find Nye's weakness and exploit it with some obscure weapon which most of us didn't know Mr. Wizard even had.
As a prize, the Mr. Wizard robot would be able to take home Xuxa, that really odd creepy lady (who was also strangely hot) who had her own children's television program back in the day. Together they would mate, and produce an offspring which would be the future of educationally themed children's television programs for the next thousand years.
I'm not sure where I got this idea. I think it was foretold somewhere in the Book of Mormon. Or maybe it was that guy who was trying to get me to take a personality test outside the Church of Scientology on Hollywood Blvd in Los Angeles.
Either way, I'm sure it will happen, if we all wish hard enough.
The Internet is generally stupid
...that I donated $50 to my local PBS station.
For me, it was Red Dwarf. Bill Nye does a lot of demonstrations and speeches for local environmental and political groups, so I usually got to see him perform or judge chocolate or beer or somesuch about 4-6 times a year, here in Seattle. Now he's only around 2-3 times a year, so I guess he must be busier.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've still got his voice on my answering machine! It'll be great to see him back on TV.
The other speaker at the event was Dr. Jill Tarter, Director of Research at SETI. Jodie Foster's Character in the movie, Contact, was based on Dr. Tarter. She was also a great speaker and cool to work with.
somebody is got to make a poll.
Beakman vs the other guys
I don't know the other guys are
What is the name of Sir Fred Hoyle's show? Can I see it in the US? Is he as funny as Bill Nye?
As an expecting father, this made me realize that I'd love to have the entire Bill Nye series for my kid. I loved the series while in college, and always imagined that with whatever band I'd eventually form up we'd know we'd made it when we had a song and music video on Bill Nye.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that there are no DVDs to buy of Bill Nye. For all the crap TV shows that are coming out on DVD this month, how is it possible that Bill Nye has not yet arrived on DVD?
If such a torrent link existed, now would be the time to share it, yes?
There is a great professor of astronomy from Munich who has his own tv show, and it does not hurt his reputation. The late Prof.Dr.Dr.Habil S. Grossmann, from the University of Marburg, was a great theoretical physicist,who also had his own tv show, a boring show, at least compared to Bill Nye's.
I damn near shat meself, I did! This guy, hands down paved the road for science in school when it came to learning. Im still in high school and when a video of 'Bill Nye' is put on, everyone pays attention. He makes learning fun! *rainbow* The more you know
Does anyone else think he looks a lot like the Gman?
Seriously, if they make a Half-Life movie, I bet he gets the part.
The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the researchers found.
This is one of those sad realities that you see day in and day out, even with otherwise well balanced people. If there is an activity that you swear off, and promise never to do, invariably it will be done and it will be done irresponsibly. The people in college who really burned out their brains on drugs were the ones in High School who swore they would never do any. The people didn't use condoms were the ones who swore they would never have premarital sex. By swearing off an activity, these people weren't mentally prepared to engage in the activity in a rational fashion. When people fall off the wagon, they fall hard.
To pull this back towards topic, hopefully this is the kind of controversial reasearch that Bill Nye will tackle. Hopefully, politics be damned, he will show that schools which teach abstinence-only sexual education have significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancy than districts with real sexual education courses, even accounting for things like income disparity and location. Or even that 50% of high school students are already sexually active, and educational programs should be tailored to this fact. Of course, it might be stepping over the line to point out that the bible belt has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, higher than the hedonistic blue states, but no fact should be too controversial for Bill Nye.
Please, please let no fact be too controversial for Bill Nye. Please tell me he doesn't have to cut a story on life forms in aquatic thermal vents because it makes passing reference to evolution.
The ______ Agenda
Mr. Wizard is da MAN!
I swear I won't murder anyone.
I just have to quote my roommate after telling him that Bill Nye is coming back; "Bill Nye!!! That's the guy that made me love science!" Fuck yeah.
I would just like to quote my girlfriend. "Bill Nye has sex?? Bill Nye has a penis??"
Bill's original science show had the best science parodies of pop songs. They were awesome songs. I want to find an anthology of those songs.
So he's doing a less profane version of Penn and Teller's show?
From my experience, that's not exactly true. I swore off drugs, and never "burned out my brain" in college. There have been other things that I have, to one degree or another, sworn off. The ones I have later actually done I did with caution, not irresponsibly, and never over-did to the point of causing a problem. I have also seen this in other people, so I know it's not just me who is like this.
On the other hand, I (and those others I mention) have generally sworn something off based on our own decisions, after considering actually doing it. Among those I have seen who swore something off because they were told to do it, your scenario is much more likely.
The problem is not the insistence that you will not do something so much as having that decision forced on you. If you decide upon such a thing yourself, that generally means you have considered the information and are aware of the risks involved, as well as the possible precautions to be taken if you are involved in the activity. Those who have such things forced upon them are generally lacking in the basic knowledge of what you can do to be safe while doing that activity - after all, if you tell someone they will never, never be allowed to do something, why would you bother to tell them how to do it safely? (Yes, logically you should - but the situations we are talking about are generally forced by people who are are not looking at things logically, but rather as a matter of dogma.)
[E]veryone's favorite Science Guy is coming out with a new show, The Eyes of Nye where he tackles some more serious issues like addiction, sex, cloning, and climate change."
I think I've seen that show. Called "Bullshit" on Showtime with our favorite magicians.
I don't believe you.
Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
sex??!!! what I ask you??! everything you need to know is right here: use a condom, and jiggle it around a little bit. SHEESH
Disney is charge $32 / 26 minute episode. For a grand total of over $3200 for all 100 episodes. On the bright side, they provide free shipping.
For that price, Bill better give me a back rub as well. The link to the videos.
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
Hmm. On dial-up, the flash intro loading timestamps are... all too real. Sigh.
Very true. I should have made that distinction.
However, the distinction does become a bit finer. It's not just a question of whether the decision was forced on the person, but how the person came to that decision. If a person decides not to do, say, LSD because they've done a thorough investigation of the effects of LSD, they know the rate of people who become insane on it, they know how situations can turn bad and how to deal with them, and the risk just isn't worth the payoff, then they are making a quite informed decision, and have enough information at their fingertips that if they do decide to indulge one day they're not going to do so while driving a car in a foreign country on a raised highway. On the other hand, another person may have simply heard that LSD is bad for you, used that as a weight in their decision making process, and come to the conclusion that drugs are bad 'mkay and that they are going to never do drugs. It's not just personal choice, it's the degree of knowledge people have about these things. To make an accurate choice, some people gain quite a strong working knowledge of the process, and that serves them quite well.
But to a lot of people, making a decision is the end of the knowledge gathering process. Do say "I will never have sex," is to say "I will never have to learn about having sex, because I'm not going to have it." Even if they come to the decision on their own, and even if that decision isn't as hollow as some of the examples I've used so far, to a lot of people that's the end of the learning process. I can tell you that the early-withdrawl method gives you zero protection against STD's, but is that common knowledge amongst people who aren't planning on having sex? If they were thorough in their investigative process before making their decision, some of they may. If they were like so many people and based their decision on what little data was presented to them, then no. Both of these people have made their own decisions, and both think that decision is based on the facts of the subject, but one of them may do something really stupid when they're put in a human situation and decide to explore.
And sex is, of course, a bit different than drugs (I probably shouldn't have generalized as much as I did), because everyone has sex at some point in their lives. Saying that you're not going to have sex is like saying you're not going to eat: it's a basic human drive, and everyone does it. People can be drug-free, and apparently 50% of Americans manage that for their entire lives. But almost nobody dies a virgin. And almost nobody gets married a virgin either, ensuring that nearly everybody who makes an "Abstinence before marriage" pledge will either change their minds or fall off the wagon. Either way, no good will come of their pledge.
The ______ Agenda
I remember what happened the last time you said that.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I saw Bill Nye in November of 2003 at the Texas BEST robotics competition at Texas A&M university and I have to say I was disappointed. The guy was really dry and boring. (I thought I had remembered him more interesting.) He seemed to have an agenda that he was trying to shove down everyone's throats, going on and on about things he couldn't verify to be true. ...any why did I stay for the whole thing?
josh
What about Beakman???
Lets face it, the science was pretty lame on both those shows for the most part. Atleast Beakman's was funny.
There are other factors involved as well. The vast majority of alcoholics come from families where the parents are either tea totallers or alcoholics themselves. The main feature in both cases is that the child never learns moderation. Alcoholism is rare amongst Jews, who give their children small amounts of alcohol on holy days, ritualizing its use. But alcohol was devastating to North American natives, who had no cultural experience with it. Again, moderation is the key.
As Paracelsus (1493-1541) put it: "Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison, the dose alone makes the poison." The religious right are people who see things in black and white, and who believe that more of a good thing is always better--so if you can have too much of something, any amount must be bad.
The world just doesn't work this way. And once they've thrown their simple rules away, there are no rules. The whole mindset is frighteningly narrow. The kids raised in it just aren't equipped to make it in the real world. Freedom is a problem for them, because they don't know how to deal with it. You can see the same thing happening in Islamic countries. And the solution they come up with is to curtail everyone's freedom.
A few months ago he was also at a Planetary Society event, on the eve of the Huygens landing. I have a bowler hat which I collect signatures in, and I got him to sign mine! He remarked that he has a bowler hat as well.
That brought the list of signatures in my hat to the following (in order of signing):
Kevin Mitnick (at a CMU talk; almost got Stephen Wozniak as well right after, but had given the pen to someone else)
Neal Stephenson (also at a CMU talk)
Brian Binnie (X Prize pilot, at Caltech talk)
John Rhys-Davies (also at Planetary Society event)
Bill Nye the Science Guy
My mission is to have the geekiest hat on the planet.
Do you think he will cover evolution? That's science, right?
Does that include crappy 70's sex-ed documentaries like the The Miracle of Life... I had to watch that and wish to curse it on the next generation...
I see him around at the bars in Georgetown occasionally. He really knows how to drink.
For that, I salute him.
-- "The reward of suffering is experience." - Aeschylus
I was hoping the REAL science guy was coming back: Dr. Science He knows more than you!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm addicted to clone sex in the rain. Will there be a show for me?
My highschool freshman physics teacher once related a story[1] (after being pestered by us to do so when we learned he had met these celebrities). It seems said teacher had met both Bill Nye and Beakman[2] (presumably at conferences for scientists/science teachers). Of them he said, "well, one of them is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, and the other is a complete jerk you'd never want to know." I always assumed Bill Nye was the jerk, at the time being a fan of Beakman's World but not much of a fan of The Science Guy. But based on reading these /. comments today, I suspect it was the other way around.
[1] I may be remembering this story wrong[3]. I was a freshman, so that would have been 10 years ago.
[2] It may not have even been Beakman who Bill Nye was compared to, but someone else. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. Wizard, though. But definitely Bill Nye was in there.
[3] It's also possible Mr. Hickman was just pulling our chain and made the whole thing up.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
.... more power to him! He made science fun for my kids (I liked his videos myself) and for that I am grateful to him.
because everyone has sex at some point in their lives
You must be new here
If you believe that someone has to have a degree to know enough about science to make an informative (and hopefully enjoyable) show, you are missing the point. While no one can be an expert in every field, the basics of science can and should be accessible to everyone. That's the most important thing about what people like Don Herbert and Bill Nye do, they demonstrate you don't have to be a scientist understand scientific priciples.
This was a well formed post, shooting information onto the internet that probably 95% of viewers would have taken as solemn truth without so much as a peep. Just a few questions regarding your information:
"Hopefully, politics be damned, he will show that schools which teach abstinence-only sexual education have significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancy than districts with real sexual education courses"
What source did you get this information from?
What is defined as 'real sexual education courses'?
"Or even that 50% of high school students are already sexually active"
What source did you get this information from?
"Of course, it might be stepping over the line to point out that the bible belt has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, higher than the hedonistic blue states"
What source did you get this information from?
While I respect almost anyone's comments don't be so hasty to bash the religious yet neglect the "scientific superiority" of cited sources. The well known and well-cited 'they' always come back to haunt you.
I never liked Bill Nye's show much, then again, I was old enough to remember his career as a lame stand-up comedian... now Mr Wizard, he was uber cool!
Please, please let no fact be too controversial for Bill Nye.
Is this in America? Controversy seems to have no place there, religious values count for everything. It will probably be watered down or will try to pander to conservative types. If he doesn't, no channel will show it for fear of alienating viewers, and therefore advertisers. If you want to make a controversial programme, do it in Britain and show it on channel 4, such things are encouraged there.
"People can be drug-free, and apparently 50% of Americans manage that for their entire lives"
...
C'mon now let's not be naive. There are two types of drugs in this country; the type that our government tells us we are allowed to use and the type that are sold illegally on the street. Let's all grow up a little and realize that we are all "drug-addicts" of some kind or another. To some, this may sound like tin-foil propaganda but we exist in a consumer society. We buy and we sell and drugs are someone that people can get you to keep buying over and over again until you become dependant on them. A substance does not have to be an opiate to be considered a drug; hell anyone who watches TV can show you ancedotal evidence that we are a society of drug addicts.
I realize this is completely off-topic but it'd be nice if the US Government would start to deal with the real reasons why people begin using drugs and stop worrying about drugs themeselves. I know some of you may think I'm crazy, but I am of the belief that drug use is often a "crutch" for some other problem. We attack the symptons, not the problems again sorry for the rant
Unless Bill Nye is a common name, back when I worked for public television (read: volunteered) we used to play a show called "Deep Dish TV" from out of the northwest US that had a segment called "Bill Nye: Nye On Hollywood". He wore a press hat type of thing and did a Hollywood beat. From what I remember, it looked like the same guy.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
Bill Nye sent his PC in for service and called the company for an update, where we worked at the time. She was pleasant with him and he was a real ass, calling her a bitch because his notebook wasn't ready yet. If you think the regular customer is unreasonable, the famous ones can be real turds.
And what about 3-2-1 contact (with the original Bloodhound Gang)? That was perhaps the best kids' science show of all time.
You are persuasive but biology is also involved. The enzymes that detoxify alcohol vary considerably among humans, which could contribute to the behavioural differences (for example).
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
although, with drugs, abstinence, and premarital sex come good lessons in life, which we all need to learn!!
Let's see if I can reconstruct my sources. BTW, my post wasn't intended to be a paper or taken as fact. It's a post on Slashdot. Let me repeat that: it's a post on Slashdot. I would hope interested readers would look it up for themselves.
"Hopefully, politics be damned, he will show that schools which teach abstinence-only sexual education have significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancy than districts with real sexual education courses"
What source did you get this information from?
What is defined as 'real sexual education courses'?
The latest example I've heard of came out of england a few months ago. NPR did a pretty substantial segment on it. But I've read it many places and many sources throughout the years. The American Medical Association and Planned Parenthood both have official negative stances on Abstinence-only education for this very reason.
I'm defining "real sex education courses," as one whose primary goal is to educate about sex. Education in this context is to provide a broad spectrum of information that a person will need to make informed choices. Abstinence-only isn't an education because it isn't providing information about the activity, it's just a policy to try to swear people off of it. Like how "Rock the vote" isn't really voter education, it's a get-out-the-vote drive.
"Or even that 50% of high school students are already sexually active"
What source did you get this information from?
That's a pretty widely known statistic, man: sources abound. Here's one, from the department of Health and Human Services.
"Of course, it might be stepping over the line to point out that the bible belt has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, higher than the hedonistic blue states"
What source did you get this information from?
That would be the CDC.
While I respect almost anyone's comments don't be so hasty to bash the religious yet neglect the "scientific superiority" of cited sources. The well known and well-cited 'they' always come back to haunt you.
Whenever someone doesn't cite their sources, google it. There is a wealth of information out there at your fingertips.
The ______ Agenda
Not only can people be drug-free, but they can live their lives both sexually pure and sexually fulfilled. Our current culture doesn't help, but for those with the backbone to swim against the tide, it can be done. The spiritual danger is in becoming proud and self-righteous, thinking you're better than others because you avoided some particularly self destructive sins.
The only safe sex is married sex.
The religious right are people who see things in black and white
Is anybody else laughing their asses off at the hypocrisy of this statement?
Remember Beakman's World! I love that show! Though, nothing can beat Bill Nye, they need to bring back Beakman's World, kicked ass. I forget the theme song.
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!