Bill Nye (better known to some as the Science Guy) says he isn’t attacking religion by advocating that children be protected from creationist viewpoints. He’s just saying people shouldn’t let religious beliefs interfere with science.
Nye,a former Seattleite and current Internet science star, caused a stir online in a video for BigThink.com. He made this plea to adults who don’t believe in evolution: Please, don’t make your kids think that, too. (Watch the video here: “Bill Nye to creationist parents: Don’t force your crazy beliefs on kids.”)
A few days later, Nye added some more perspective in a CBS interview. The full video is posted above. Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of CBS.
You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science is something else. My concern is you don’t want people growing up not believing in radioactivity, not believing in geology and deep time. You don’t want people in the United States growing up without the expectation that we can land spacecraft on Mars. You want people to believe in science, this process, this great idea that humans had to discover more about the universe and our place in it, our place in space.
Nye also spoke out to the Huffington Post, saying the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally when it comes to creationism:
The bible that is often cited as a guide to natural law has been translated from other ancient languages. There must be countless subtleties and nuances that are literally lost in translation. I got into good bit of controversy, when I showed an audience in Waco, Texas, USA that the bible, as translated into English, claims that the Sun lights the day, and the Moon lights the night. I pointed out that this translation is unsettling. To my ear, it doesn’t seem as though the author realized that the Moon’s light is reflected sunlight. It seems to me that many ancient people may have realized that the Moon casts reflected light, but it’s lost in translation. This being but one example.
In case you haven’t heard, Nye is reprising his science show on YouTube in conjunction with Nerdist.com. As controversial as his creationism statement has been, it can’t be bad publicity for the new show.
Nye,a former Seattleite and current Internet science star, caused a stir online in a video for BigThink.com. He made this plea to adults who don’t believe in evolution: Please, don’t make your kids think that, too. (Watch the video here: “Bill Nye to creationist parents: Don’t force your crazy beliefs on kids.”)
A few days later, Nye added some more perspective in a CBS interview. The full video is posted above. Here’s a partial transcript, courtesy of CBS.
You can believe what you want religiously. Religion is one thing, but science, provable science is something else. My concern is you don’t want people growing up not believing in radioactivity, not believing in geology and deep time. You don’t want people in the United States growing up without the expectation that we can land spacecraft on Mars. You want people to believe in science, this process, this great idea that humans had to discover more about the universe and our place in it, our place in space.
Nye also spoke out to the Huffington Post, saying the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally when it comes to creationism:
The bible that is often cited as a guide to natural law has been translated from other ancient languages. There must be countless subtleties and nuances that are literally lost in translation. I got into good bit of controversy, when I showed an audience in Waco, Texas, USA that the bible, as translated into English, claims that the Sun lights the day, and the Moon lights the night. I pointed out that this translation is unsettling. To my ear, it doesn’t seem as though the author realized that the Moon’s light is reflected sunlight. It seems to me that many ancient people may have realized that the Moon casts reflected light, but it’s lost in translation. This being but one example.
In case you haven’t heard, Nye is reprising his science show on YouTube in conjunction with Nerdist.com. As controversial as his creationism statement has been, it can’t be bad publicity for the new show.