"Hey Bill Nye, I Have an Inheritable Disease. Should I Have Kids?" #TuesdaysWithBill | Big Think

"Hey Bill Nye, I Have an Inheritable Disease. Should I Have Kids?"

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William wants to have kids someday. William has cystic fibrosis, an inheritable disease. How should he approach this dilemma?

This week's #TuesdaysWithBill video features Bill Nye at his most personal. In the end, he offers the following advice to William: Do what you feel is right for you, but make sure you can support the kid with your condition.

Of course, there's also the fact that, for all we know, cystic fibrosis might have a cure in the coming decades. There's always hope that medical science will swoop in and save the day.

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BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY:

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:

William: My name is William and I have cystic fibrosis. I’ve always been really excited about the idea of becoming a father in the future but given I would definitely pass on these faulty carriers CF gene if I have children, do you think it would be irresponsible to do so? Thank you very much.

Bill Nye: I don’t have cystic fibrosis, although I studied it, you know, a while ago. Maybe that’s why you sought me out on this. I did a video about cystic fibrosis. And I guess somebody passed it on to you and you’re okay or you’re doing okay. It’s up to you. It’s really your decision. And by you, I mean you and your wife or the woman you choose to have kids with. It’s obviously on your mind, but I’ll say just objectively, stepping back, people who have kids that’s the greatest thing they ever do. Kids are the most important thing to anybody. So if you really want to have kids and you have a woman who’s in with you, then I guess who am I to tell you you can’t do it. But we on the outside, we who do not have cystic fibrosis want you to think about being able to support the kid. You might feel worse if you have everybody else judging you badly for having had a kid that you couldn’t support because of this extraordinary condition. But it’s also very reasonable to me that in the next even — we’ll pick a number — 10 years would be extraordinary, but 30 would not be extraordinary. In the next 15 years, someone has a way to have something akin to a virus carry a repair, a gene repair into your cells that would make this condition go away. That’s very reasonable. And you seem able bodied and hearty and I hope you’re in studies so that people can better understand that disease......

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