Bill Nye Film on PBS' Point of View: A Biologos "MUST SEE"

Many scientists today grew up with Bill Nye, the Science Guy. PBS featured a Point of View (POV) film about Bill Nye last night, with lots of stuff about Ken Ham, and how Christians view science. There is even clips from an interview with Francis Collins. This is a Biologos “MUST SEE” in my book, and it looks like, for awhile, you can view the film online:

http://www.pbs.org/pov/billnyescienceguy/video/bill-nye-science-guy/

Maybe will have to break down and watch it. I’m not a big Bill Nye fan since he left children’s TV. He is pretty much just an entertainer these days, and differs from Ham only in content, in my opinion. But, sounds interesting. Not miss Chicago P. D. interesting, but interesting.

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I wound up watching it tonight, enjoyable and interesting. It did humanize Nye, and helped me understand him as a person. The portion that discussed his interaction with Ken Ham was put together well I thought. It seemed to skip over the controversy with his recent show, for some reason.

What are you think of here? The only thing I saw was the politicization of the episode he did on ‘The Sexual Spectrum.’ But just simply looking at a list of episode topics: Bill Nye Saves the World - Wikipedia… it isn’t hard to image why any of those episodes wouldn’t cause some amount of controversy. Probably half of the United States give or take shares the Conservative perspective on Climate Change and so from episode 1, many people would have had a problem with it. And then alternative medicine is epsidode 2… these are the types of topics I might choose if I was doing a show like this and yeah, aiming to have a more scientific perspective on any of these polarizing topics is sure to create some enemies.

I also watched it the other day and did enjoy it. It was helpful for me to see another side of him as well!

That was it, with the entertainment portion. Also, the PBS show could have gone into how his re-birth as an adult science mentor was going but did not really address it that much. I thought it interesting how the Nye-Ham debate led to increased donations, sort of says something about our society.

I really enjoyed this…thanks for posting it.

@pevaquark

I have to hope that the percentage of America that shares the conservative perspective on climate change is only a little more than 40%… since the Tea Party Wing is about 37%…

Those of you who clicked on the OP link early enough to view it — count your blessings. For latecomers like me the link now flashes a message that the video is “no longer available to watch for free online”.

I watched one of Nye’s episodes of his new content on Netflix. It was. absolutely. terrible.

He’s promoting social topics, maintaining the liberal social popular status quo, with “science” to support those positions. I watched one full episode and saw some shared content from another. It was a drastic departure from the stuff my kids used to watch.

I have no stomach for more of Bill Nye at this point, to be honest.

What episode did you watch just curious? The list of episodes for many of them seemed like good topics to me though I haven’t watched any.

The very first one. Global warming. I thought, okay, I wonder if this is “science” or “politics.” I watched it. More politics than science (i.e., a fair bit of mockery of opposing positions, some “facts” felt like speculation). Then I looked through the rest of the topics and thought…nah, waste of time. If I want Michael Moore, I’ll watch Michael Moore… :wink:

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@fmiddel

I understand your reasoning perfectly.

I have just one thing to contribute to your views: Climate Change is real. The more CO2 is in the air, the longer it will take for us to ever get our glaciers back. But by then, we will have solved most of the problems that our glaciers solve (water intermediation in South America, Europe, parts of Asia).

The real problem, and it is really too late to change this, is that food production centers are going to move, and coastal populations are going to have to move.

And whenever food and people have to move, there will be war and havoc that affects the entire world. Little ol’ Syria’s problems were triggered by less than a decade of drought… and it has affected civilization all the way to Sweden and America!

The wealthy would rather pay to move where they want to live, than to pay taxes to make things easier on the very poor of this and other countries. Perhaps camels will evolve that are small enough to pass through the eyes of the newest kinds of needles?

And the people in countries with growing economies want to have the same quality of life as we do in the US and Europe. That means burning fuel etc. Technology has helped a lot: cell phones cost less energy than stringing wire, LEDs can make light with a lot less energy than incandescent bulbs and may allow a solar cell to substitute for a coal burning power plant 100 miles away.

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That wasn’t my issue. My issue was that the show was supposed to be about science. It wasn’t.

Food can’t be produced just anywhere. And moving coastal populations? We can’t just more our tents.

Yes, but coastlines have always moved up and down. Even with current predictions, current buildings will be at the end of their useful lives in 50 years and will be rebuilt elsewhere in many cases. Island residents may be out of luck. Who knows, Siberia may be the new breadbasket of the world.

That said, I do agree that we are doing a poor job of stewardship of the earth, I’m just not sure things are going to get much better globally, no matter what we do is the USA.

If somebody has a plan for moving Manhattan I’d sure like to see it.

@beaglelady,

By definition, the centers of food production will have to shift. I didn’t say the new centers would be as productive… nor as happily arranged.

And as for the coastal populations, they will have to move or die, no?

You and I are in agreement… it’s going to be terrible… and the very wealthy of America are not very interested in helping to fund mitigation strategies… they would rather buy tanks and bombers…

There was nothing in my brief post that suggested that the movement of food production areas or of coastal populations was going to be a pleasant experience.

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I don’t think you realize what is involved, or the impact this would have on all of us.

@beaglelady

Oyyyy. Apparently, it is beyond your imagination to comprehend how well I do understand the impact on the rest of us. I am completely zealous in my opposition to deniers. I got the exact ‘step-by-step’ story from a climate scientists for how CO2 de-gasses and is re-absorbed, depending on the Earth’s orbit. And I have been posting the entire sequence whenever it becomes clear that a correspondent doesn’t have a clue how it all ties together.
I have fought tooth and nail with those who would throw dust in the air when they claim, erroneously, the science is not settled.

The point I have been making (or trying to make above) is that the very wealthy conservatives in America see only an unforgivable drain on their profits by any taxes that might be used to even invest in climate-related R&D (which would also trigger better jobs and even technological leadership in the global economy). They would rather spend money on weapons R&D than anything that has to do with climate research. Why? Sometimes I actually do wonder if Satan isn’t real… and that he lives in the fossil fuel deposits of Earth.