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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.")

12 of 681 comments (clear)

  1. Good grief... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Bill Nye, one of the foremost science educators in the United States...

    I think that's overstating it a bit. I don't know what Nye's bona fides are (some: bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering in 1977), certainly he's a knowledgeable science guy who has done much to interest kids and young adults in science, and of course there is his Great Debate with the "Intelligent Design" idiots. But "one of the foremost science educators"? Hmmm.

    states that only the upper crust members of American science and technology (with degrees from top tier schools) understand science, particularly climate change....

    Well SNOOT SNOOT, my good mad! Not an MIT grad? Did'nt go to Stanford? Hit the bricks! You opinions, masters, PhD, or whatever? Not worth the paper your diploma was printed on.

    Good grief.

    Of course Nye is a Cornell University guy, so, you know, everyone not of the Ivy League is suspect. I wonder which secret society he is a member of...

    Science in the US get's low grades? University in general in the US gets low grades. Why? It's not about education, it's all about money. And football, don't forget the football.

    So let's just solve this by insulting everyone. Washington State University knows nothing about medical science. Oregon State University knows zilch about forestry (or is that not science?). There are many well known public and private universities that while not up to Bill Nye's Ivy Standard, do good and great science.

    Nye is off the beam.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Good grief... by TWX · · Score: 5, Funny

      He's still alive?

      Fifteen year old article on his death.

      I was quite saddened when I thought that the United States had lost one of its premiere science guys...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:Good grief... by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To be fair, he was just answering the question an interviewer asked him. It's not like he was writing a thesis or anything. Someone asked him his opinion, and he gave it.

      I can tell you, I've given much, much stupider opinions of my own before.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Good grief... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's actually something he's spot-on about. Science knowledge in general in the US is absolutely dreadful.

      If you don't believe me, try asking people some science questions and see how many of them even get it close. What is the chemical formula for water? How old is the Earth? What's the difference between a dominant and recessive trait? What does half-life mean? What is red shift? What is kinetic energy?

    4. Re:Good grief... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Someone asked him his opinion, and he gave it.

      A fairly accurate opinion, in my opinion. CS people are better educated than the average person, but many of them are still surprisingly ignorant about scientific topics.. Many of them don't even understand how computers actually work.

    5. Re:Good grief... by Capsaicin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      CS people are better educated than the average person, but many of them are still surprisingly ignorant about scientific topics.

      And neither should we expect them to be experts outside their own field. I should have no reasonable expectation that a farmer (Nye wrote "regular software writers and farmers") would have expertise in astrophysics for example. And as science requires ever more specialisation, I should have no reasonable expectation either that an astrophysicist be an expert in pharmacology (just don't try telling any physicist that! ;)

      The problem is not so much the lack of knowledge about "scientific topics," it the lack of humility in regard to those who have knowledge. You are free, of course, to contradict the orthodoxy in absolutely any field of science, but it is impertient to do so unless you have done the hard yards and made yourself an expert. The knowledge, the skill rather, that everyone ought to possess (and this IMO is more important than direct knowledge of "science topics") is the skill to assess the credibility and authoritativeness of sources of scientific "information." It is this skill, in light of the increasing supply of disinformation, that a science education ought to impart.

      You may think that measles isn't that serious (you'd be wrong), but it could just as easily have been polio. The inability to sort out scientific information from scientific disinformation kills!

      --
      Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
  2. 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".

  3. Misleading Summary by estitabarnak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Summary is misleading. Nye basically says US as a whole is failing when it comes to educating average people about science. He admits that, sure, we have top top-tier institutions and scientists, but we need to do a better job educating the average person.

    Hardly the swipe aimed specifically at Slashdotters that TFS makes it out to be. Furthermore, if we use /. as a case study, given some of the gems I've seen here recently, I think "semi-science-literate" isn't a bad estimate of the average.

  4. Bill Nye, the Dogma Guy! by GoddersUK · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, this is the world’s most technically advanced society, and we have people denying climate change. These guys are still in deep denial, and future generations, what few of them will be alive, are just going to go, “What were you freaking people doing? What was wrong with you?”

    No. This is why Nye, and people like him, are not "the foremost science educators" anywhere. This is not science. Science is not about being correct, science is not about deferring to authorities; science is a process for understanding our world, for explaining and predicting. It's a philosophy, not a set of facts. People in the future will be saying “What were you freaking people doing? What was wrong with you?”, but they won't be saying it to climate change "deniers" or "sceptics" - they will be saying it to the "science educators" who thought levelling charges of heresy was a better course than providing a reasoned, evidence based argument.

    You see if you truly believe in the scientific method, and the wider philosophy of rationality, you provide a reasoned, evidence based defence of your position and attack on your opponents position. You don't tell them that they're not qualified to speak because they don't have a PhD from Harvard, or because they disagree with the "consensus". Science does not rely on qualification or authority or consensus and the myth that it does is the biggest threat to scientific literacy today.

    And show some f***ing consistency, please. If you're going to shout down "conservatives" for being unqualified to talk about climate change please shout down "liberals" and "greens" that talk about, and accept, climate change as being unqualified to talk about it too.

  5. Synopsis by meglon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Whoever wrote the lead-in either can't read, doesn't understand basic English, or is a semi-science-literate who's butthurt for being called out as one. Nye hit's it pretty much on the head in his assessment... we have some fantastic scientists in this country, but they are surrounded by a huge morass of people who are intentionally ignorant and outright hostile to anything remotely intellectual; we need more scientists in this country, and less stupid.

    --
    Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  6. Television entertainers know about as much about.. by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... Science as pop stars do about geopolitics. It is always painful to listen to some pop star lecture people about the middle east or the economic policy of the Fed. It is no less annoying when a television entertainer tries to browbeat basically everyone by suggesting that he's in some elite cliche of thinkers... when really he was paid to put on funny outfits and act WAY too excited about pouring baking soda into vinegar.

    Bill Nye is a poor man's Mr Wizard. Anyone remember Mr Wizard? Way better. And everyone notice how Mr Wizard has spent years acting like the smartest man in the universe long after he stopped even doing his show? Me neither. Get over yourself, Bill. You're not half as smart as you think you are and if the software engineers don't get it then you don't either.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.