For 25 years, Bill Nye the Pseudo-Science Guy has been miseducating people on the nature of science. Is he simply ignorant? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Prologue: In order to help understand this discussion better, we suggest that our readers look through the following two papers on the philosophy of science and research methodology: “The Basics of Hypothesis Testing” and “Reforming Science.”
Bill Nye has benefited from a conflation between celebrity status and expertise. While people listen to him, because he is a celebrity, he has not earned his status, through extensive formal education or contribution to science. He has not published any scientific or philosophical papers, in either a peer reviewed journal or even any open publication database like OSF.
He has a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. That is it. He is an inventor, and has contributed to exploration through his inventions, but this contribution would not grant him expert status, if not for him being a celebrity. And while science communication is very important, what he says is contrary to the very nature of scientific inquiry. He speaks of settled science, and various theories as if they were facts. He speaks of consensus among scientists, rather than consensus between theory and evidence.
Such positions take science and turn it into dogma, and he has been doing so for a quarter of a century. We need people who can promote the love of science. But why is his explanation of science so far off from the foundations of how it actually works? Is he simply ignorant of the philosophy of science and the mathematics behind it? Perhaps.
Or perhaps he is a pawn in YHWH’s evil plan. Creationists often reject evolution and other related theories, because they are just theories, and not proven fact. They compare theories of evolution to theories of gravity, thinking that gravity is proven true. It is not. No theory is proven true. All science is in a constant state of flux. But for that reason, it is never appropriate to reject a position, simply because it is not proven.
Bill Nye, and others like him, also have fought a war against religion. Their position on the topic is fairly unscientific in nature. But why would YHWH wish to fuel a war against religion? The answer could be “divide and conquer.” While we believe that YHWH wishes to be worshiped as a god, if he can keep people fighting with each other, it will make it easier to control them. The First Church of Penguinism seeks cooperation between science and religion, because it is through cooperation, rather than war, that we have the greatest chance of survival and prosperity.
And hopefully, over time, people will come to understand both science and religion, and we can peacefully coexist.
Further Reading
