Bill Nye on Teaching Science Like Comedy

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There is a marked divide between science and religion. Some people can balance the two in their lives, such as astronomer Allan Sandage, who discovered the first quasar and determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble constant and the age of the universe. In response to the question "Can a person be a scientist and also a Christian?" he answered: "Yes. The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together." More recently that same, still-popular view has been expressed in fiction via the scientist Kala from the Netflix show Sense8, who said, "Science doesn’t preclude my faith. For me, science is another language we use to talk about the same miracles that faith talks about."

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BILL NYE

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.

In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.

While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”

Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.

Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.

Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Slade: Hi Bill. My name is Chris Slade and one of my goals in life is to help bridge the gap between science and the modern Christian. What is there that I could say to help convince others that the creation story is likely just a story that was told to people who wouldn’t have understood the complexities of science as we do today. I just want to show people that their religious beliefs don’t need to be dependent on ignoring science.

Bill Nye: Chris. Your religious beliefs don’t depend on ignoring science. Well I hope not. So just from my point of view Chris keep in mind I’m a mechanical engineer. I took nothing but physics. I love science. Science is what enabled us to create this computer communication system in this electronic infrastructure. Without science you couldn’t do this. And you use the word Christian so specifically there’s nothing in the New Testament of the Bible about electrons or protons or transistor-transistor logic or even modern or maybe most especially modern agriculture or genes or DNA and so on. So the question is if you have a religious tenet. If you hold a point of view that excludes something about modern science I don’t think the burden is on scientists or engineers to provide you a comfortable link. The link is for you. You have to reckon the facts as we call them with some belief system that is incompatible with it.

An example that I think everybody would eventually find ourse...

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