Hey Bill Nye, "What If We Were Intelligently Designed?" #tuesdayswithbill | Big Think

What If We Were Intelligently Designed?

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Asked by Matt what a universal superintelligent designer would be like, Bill Nye the Science Guy takes an evolutionary approach: In a way, we designed ourselves. There is no evidence to suggest a God-like creator orchestrated the rise of humanity. Rather, by way of evolution, we have developed into the beings we are today by adapting to nature. The process of natural selection has optimized and continues to optimize our physiology. It's not superintelligent or universal, but it's certainly not an accident why we are the way we are.

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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:

Matt: Bill, I’m Matt from Mexico and I wanted to know what would a universal superintelligent designer be like? Thank you.

Bill Nye: Matthew, buenos dias. I don’t know what a superintelligent overbeing would be like. People have speculated that there is an entity that has a plan for your life and in the U.S. anyway we use the English word God for this guy. And if that’s true there’s a lot of loose ends. So I’m not sure what the superintelligent entity would be up to.

But to give you something to think about, in contrast, the reason you and I are here is because of evolution. We are a result of millennia — of about four and a half billion years — of evolution on Earth. Now life started three and a half billion years ago — billions of years of evolution. And evolution doesn’t work that way. There is not a superintelligent entity at the top directing things. Instead things come into being through nature in our case on Earth from sunlight, the spin of the Earth, and the primordial warmth of the Earth. This energy induced chemical reactions to take place that led to things that could reproduce and then reproduce better and better after that. And it was bottom up.

The things that fit in the best with the situation around them, the environment, this three and a half billion years ago to today — not the things that lift the most weights in the gym. The thing that fits in the best led to this expression the survival of the fittest. And you and I are here because we’re good enough. We are not super — I don’t think — it doesn’t seem to be.

There’s no evidence to support the idea that we were designed by a super intelligent designer. Instead we’re good...

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