Maher hosted Nye Friday on his HBO program 'Real Time with Bill Maher.' | AP Photos Maher, Nye hit climate skeptics

Bill Nye the Science Guy and liberal comic Bill Maher criticized creationists and climate change deniers but said the biggest issue is what is being taught in school.

“My concern is for the students, for the kids … that are brought up with this,” Nye said Friday on the HBO program “Real Time with Bill Maher.”


Nye, a scientist who debated creationist Ken Ham this week, said he respects Ham’s passion but that the most difficult part of the debate “was not slapping my forehead, not freaking out.”

Maher, a self-proclaimed atheist, had spoken with Ham for his 2008 documentary “Religulous.” Maher said 46 percent of Americans believe the story of Genesis is true, a statistic Nye called “astonishing.”

Nye also criticized Ham for using religion to explain unknowns, such as when humans developed consciousness and what happened before the Big Bang.

“What he and his people have done is used the word science in this new way; it’s very much like the people who deny that smoking causes cancer and that there’s climate change,” Nye said.

He added they “take scientific uncertainty … and turn it into doubt about the whole thing.”

“The idea that we don’t know, it scares some people and every time you said it, Ken Ham would say, ‘Well, you know Bill, there’s a book,’” Maher said, referring to the Bible and slapping his forehead.

Maher also raised the point that in addition to religion, many still deny climate change. He specifically criticized Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

“His big joke now is whenever it snows, you know, ‘Al Gore told me this wouldn’t happen,’” Maher said of the Texas senator.

Nye said that “climate is the big picture. Weather is day to day.”

Citing the recent polar vortex in the U.S. and heat wave in Australia, Nye said that extreme heat events can now be tied to climate change through statistical analysis.