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Bill Nye Disses "Regular" Software Writers' Science Knowledge

Posted by timothy on from the line-in-the-sand dept.

conoviator writes Bill Nye, one of the foremost science educators in the United States states that only the upper crust members of American science and technology (with degrees from top tier schools) understand science, particularly climate change. He opines that "regular software writers" dwell in the realm of the semi-science-literate. Nye rates science education in the U.S. an F. ("But if it makes you feel any better, you can say a B-minus.")

2 of 681 comments (clear)

  1. Horribly misleading summary by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, holy crap is this article being intentionally bad at characterizing what Nye said in the article. The "F" rating was for overall population in the USA (based on the high level of climate denial).

    His comment about him writing that you need to be from a top-tier school is wrong, as well - he was taking about how we have top-tier scientists in the US (and gave a few schools as examples) and compared them not to non-ivy schools, but to farmers and CS majors who talk about climate change as if they're experts.

    Read the linked article - Nye intimated nothing that the summary does.

    1. Re:Horribly misleading summary by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Informative

      He suggests that one's view on climate change is sufficient to determine one's abilities to understand science [...] if you disagree with me on this narrow topic, you don't understand anything about any part of science.

      Exactly where does he say that? He doesn't say that or even intimate it. He's using climate change as an example to demonstrate his point. (A near-unanimous consensus among scientists maintain that climate change is happening and is a serious problem; over 50% of the US population disagrees. This demonstrates that the US population is largely science-illiterate or science-hostile.) It does not follow from this that everyone who disagrees with him on this point is bad at science, but when 50+% of the population disagrees with scientists for non-science reasons (politics, propaganda, FUD) it is a very real indicator that there is a problem with basic understanding of science.

      He's not saying "scientists researching this who don't agree with me are bad scientists". He's saying "non-scientists saying the bulk of scientists are liars because they don't want to believe them is a problem".