Bill Nye, from the popular 1990s television show Bill Nye The Science Guy was featured in Big Think’s online video “Creationism is Not Appropriate For Children,” posted on Aug. 23, telling parents not to pass on creationist beliefs to their children. Nye has been a popular facet of teaching science to children, often using humor and interesting experiments in his show. The PBS show he starred in aired for five years, and was frequently played in my middle school classrooms. To have him enter the debate of evolution versus creationism so suddenly and in such a way shocked me. I think that evolution should be taught in school, that a school board should be allowed to decide whether creationism is to be included in their district’s teachings and that parents should be allowed to choose what they teach their children.
Nye said in his video, “Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don’t believe in evolution. . . . The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us.” In the video he also said, “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.” I’m not so sure that the world is difficult to understand without evolution. Our society lives largely in a relative present – mainly concerned with events stretching back a few hundred years and not necessarily focused on how the world was created. I agree that we will greatly need informed voters and problem solvers in the future, but I do not think that belief in the theory of evolution is the deciding factor in their success.
Nye’s video has caused uproar in the creationist community–Christians who view the stories of the Old Testament as historical fact. It has triggered numerous video responses and strong reactions from officials at Answers in Genesis, a creationist group that built the biblically-based Creation Museum in Kentucky. Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, responded with the video “Ken Ham Responds to Bill Nye ‘The Humanist Guy’” posted on their website, answersingenesis.org. Ken Ham states in his response video, “Bill Nye doesn’t really understand science. He’s called ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy?’ He confuses historical science, beliefs about the past and observational science, that develops new technologies. He puts those together and doesn’t distinguish between the two.” He, along with other creationists, argues that evolution is not provable science, but interpretation done by an idealized filter. Meaning, scientists cannot really know what happened in the past, and are using evolution to interpret questions about the unknown past.
Creationists posting on the Christian blog amos37.com say, “Engineers build technological solutions for today’s problems and physicians discover the causes and cures for diseases and deformities by ‘doing science’ in the present world, making observations, developing and testing hypotheses and trying out their ideas repeatedly in controlled circumstances. It is irrational and unscientific to think that technology is made by intelligent engineers, but the bodies of the engineers and all other living creatures were made by a blind, purposeless, directionless process called evolution.” I agree that innovations occur in the present with the focus on current and future technologies and that engineers could continue work on their projects unhindered, despite not believing in evolution. However, I am not sure that these creationists are giving an accurate view of evolution, because it is not directionless. According to The Talk Origins Archive, evolution moves towards fitness, where fitness means the ability of an organism to survive, and pass on its genetics to the next generation. Thus it has direction and purpose. The failure of creationists to acknowledge this fact is unsettling.
I believe that Nye is at fault in his claim that parents teaching creationism hurts children and society. I was not taught creationism per say, but I was raised in a Catholic family and taught the stories of Creation Week, Noah’s Ark and many more. I believe that experience was a large part of finding my faith and in no way affected my view of modern science and innovation. I even pursued science and studied evolution extensively in some of my biology courses when attending the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy for high school. I am not a creationist, nor have I fully rooted myself in guided evolution either, but I firmly believe that children are capable of learning for themselves and questioning things taught to them both in school and at home. Therefore, evolution should be taught in school, at least as the prominent scientific theory of today.
In an interview with ABC, Nye said, “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.” I largely agree. Innovation is an important aspect of human motivation and is largely needed in our society as we try to solve the daily problems our nation faces. Yet, Nye also told the Associated Press, “The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old… It’s not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs.”
I have to strongly disagree with Nye. People should not have to question their beliefs because Nye believes that they are ignoring obvious facts. The information on both theories is easily accessible and people are entitled to make their own choices based on that information. I also do not think Nye has the right to tell people to rethink their beliefs or what they should teach their children at home. If creationism is their belief, they have a right to teach it to their children. Nye has the right to his opinion and I agree that evolution should be taught in school as the scientific theory of today, but overall, parents are entitled to decide what to teach their kids.
Elaina Zintl can be reached at elaina.zintl@spartans.ut.edu
Ms. Zintl, You are an undergraduate student who has apparently failed to take courses in American history, or biology. You make numerous basic errors of fact, and logic. First, if you had paid some attention to Mr. Nye’s videos in your childhood you would know that he has addressed evolutionary biology directly for many years. His recent remarks on creationism are not those that an educator can make in a public school setting.
This brings up the first gross error you have made, and why I said you should have failed a US civics course (if you ever took one). The First Amendment to the Constitution reads as follows, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
That is just two sentences, yet they define the greatest protection to the American citizen’s principle non-governmental institutions, and they are the foundation of all American civil liberty. For the current topic, Just the first clause is applicable. No law that leads to the “… establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” is to be tolerated in a free society. This means that you are terribly wrong to think that, ” a school board should be allowed to decide whether creationism is to be included in their district’s teachings.” A public school is an agent of the State. It is the most common part of the government that any citizen ever interacts with in their lives. We usually think about First Amendment cases as preventing the injection of religious dogmas into secular public schools. A recent example is the 2005 “Pandas” trial in Dover PA where the District Federal Court found Intelligent Design creationism an illegal intrusion of religion into a state supported public school curriculum.
However, the First Amendment also protects the creationist’s false claims from rigorous exposure by a public school teacher. A case in point is the lawsuit brought against a high school history teacher, James Corbett in the Capistrano Unified School District (California).
Even ignoring the factual failures of creationism, no school board should be allowed to supercede the US Constitution.
Elaine, would it be reasonable to suggest to children that the Earth is flat? Would it be okay to simply “let them come to their own conclusions” about whether disease comes from germs or demons? Because evolution/ the age of the Earth concepts are just as irrefutable. And your faith obviously does affect your scientific absorption because otherwise I wouldn’t have to explain this to you. You see, children’s minds are very pliable. Once deformed and miswired to believe in mysticism and problem solving by faith instead of reason, it is very difficult and often impossible to reshape the mind to look at the world through evidence-based eyes. Faith is not a virtue. It is not a good thing. It warps minds, blinds eyes, closes ears, and makes us to forsake the word of peer-reviewed scientific knowledge for the ramblings of superstitious, Bronze Age desert tent-dwellers. Hey, why not teach The Illiad in school as fact? Let the kids choose what to believe, right? Or…how about this…don’t full your kids’ heads with nonsense. Teach them the way the world really is, making them more capable of relevant decisions in their lives. No storks, no tooth fairies, no gods. All the same hogwash, anyway.
THERE IS NO DEBATE ON EVOLUTION. I repeat: THERE IS NO DEBATE ON EVOLUTION. It is the cornerstone of modern biology. Bill Nye is not sticking his head into a debate; he’s dispelling misconceptions, because the opposition to evolution is almost completely based on misconception and false claims. Ken Ham is a perfect example of this, and the fact that he’s included in this article as a legitimate source is a travesty. By the way, the Catholic Church essentially accepts evolution.
Parents can choose to teach their children trash like creationism—I guess—but it’s still trash. The push to get creationism taught in schools is attempted mob rule; a lot of confused people yelling really loudly does not truth make.
Dear Elaina,
The real issue is that Creationists want to inject faith based ideas in the classroom as fact (and not falsifiable). Creationism is not Science, Creationism is merely a lazy hypothesis, (How lighting works?-Well God did).Creationists need to validate their ideas the old fashion way– by WORKING– on a testable hypothesis for peers to review. Not going to politicians to force feed to all of us their faith based beliefs.
The bonding effect that Religion has in society is positive, what is negative is that sectarian belief by religious groups that they have the TRUTH-in ALL AREAs of human dynamics.
Take for example Rep Paul Broun, which stated “All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.” And he went on to say that the Earth is under 10K years old and it was created in six days. Mr. Broun sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology; second, rank and file members of the Republican Party largely share Broun’s views. Not to mention Global Warming.
Another Representative that sits on the same committee is Rep.Todd Akin (“Legitimate Rape”). He must have attended a different Biology class that I did. (How could this man arrive at such conclusion and think of it as a fact? Does he think I am that DUMB?)
That Elaina is the danger, that if we let the likes of Akin and Broun legislate faith we will enter a retrograde spin to the middle ages. Would you trust your Healthcare and your Family to someone like Akin or Broun making managerial and policy decisions? I wouldn’t. Are Broun and Akin qualified to make decisions on Scientific Matters? I think not. Yet there they are.
There is nowhere in the US Constitution that states that there is Freedom to FORCE Creationists or faith based beliefs on ALL of us. Or that we have to Have Faith in religion to be Americans, for in the Field of Battle we all bleed the same color; Believer or not.
Science by the way does not FORCE anyone to BELIEVE anything. Sift through the data, and draw your conclusions
Faith and Reason are a political Football that is being aimed at our Educational System. This game has a direct impact in our capacity to be the leaders in the Scientific World.
I would LOVE to take Mr. Akin and Mr. Broun on a world Tour to the major World Universities (Berlin, London, Tokyo, Beijing, Mumbai, Tel Aviv Etc.). And have them answer their Scientific views in a Q&A format with students and Faculty ( I would pay for it if it was a PPV Event), for if they are right they are headed to the next Nobel Prize and if they are wrong then it goes to show the World our capacity to elect our leadership.
That is the Way I view Mr.Nye words, I strongly agree with him.
Thank you.
Carlos Marquez
Hixson, TN