Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy’ Hits Evolution Deniers

Former children's
show host Bill Nye spoke out
against the denial of
evolution in a clip posted to online
knowledge forum, saying such views harm young people especially
and hamper scientific
progress. Nye, who hosted the
educational show "Bill Nye the
Science Guy," which aired on
PBS Kids from 1993 through
1998, made the statements in a clip posted online on Thursday , and has since been viewed
over one million times. In the
clip, Nye praises the United
States for its contribution to
technological innovation, but
says that the denial of evolution is unique to the
country. "People still move to the
United States. And that's
largely because of the
intellectual capital we have,
the general understanding of
science," Nye said in the clip. "When you have a portion of
the population that doesn't
believe in that, it holds
everybody back, really. "Evolution is the fundamental
idea in all of life science, in all
of biology. It's like, it's very
much analogous to trying to
do geology without believing
in tectonic plates. You're just not going to get the right
answer. Your whole world is
just going to be a mystery
instead of an exciting place,"
he added. Nye made a three-stop tour through New Hampshire earlier this summer to tout
President Obama's education
policies while making a push
for science and engineering
programs. He has endorsed
Obama's reelection bid. In the clip, Nye said that one's
"world just becomes
fantastically complicated
when you don't believe in
evolution." "Here are these ancient
dinosaur bones or fossils, here
is radioactivity, here are
distant stars that are just like
our star but they're at a
different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep
time, of this billions of years,
explains so much of the world
around us. If you try to
ignore that, your world view
just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent,"
he said. Nye then goes on to urge
adults not to deny the
teaching of evolution to
young people. "And I say to the grownups,
if you want to deny
evolution and live in your
world, in your world that's
completely inconsistent with
everything we observe in the universe, that's fine, but don't
make your kids do it because
we need them. We need
scientifically literate voters
and taxpayers for the future.
We need people that can - we need engineers that can
build stuff, solve problems. "It's just really a hard thing,
it's really a hard thing. You
know, in another couple of
centuries that world view,
I'm sure, will be, it just won't
exist. There's no evidence for it.