Okay, let’s get this over with as quickly, comprehensively and painlessly as possible.

I, like virtually everyone else who was enrolled in elementary school around the turn of the century, reflect fondly upon watching Bill Nye the Science Guy in science class. Sure, the episodes were a little too fast paced and probably had way too many distracting elements to be effective educational tools, but they were funny enough and well-produced. The very fact that there was a popular after-school program that’s purpose was to get kids interested in science is noble and admirable in of itself. A huge part of what made the show so engaging, charming, and entertaining, was the show’s eccentric host; Mr. William Sanford Nye, alternatively known as Bill Nye the Science Guy. Kids loved him, adults loved him, I loved him; I was chanting “Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!” louder than anybody else when the iconic opening theme played. I mean, he’s the science guy, he’s Bill Nye, how could you not like him? What kind of a jaded asshole would you have to be to not fawn over his very mention?

About that…

I honestly never expected to see any new material from Mr. Nye following the conclusion of his program in 1999. I remember being delightfully surprised when I witnessed his return in the form of a fabulously popular Big Think video about creationism that was released in 2012. When I first watched the video on YouTube, I took note of one key thing about Nye that had changed; his tone. While Bill Nye used to be zany, fun, and full of life, he was now more somber and serious. I think that I liked the video at the time; I was younger, poorly versed in argumentation, and creationism was kind of big back then in North America. Nye and I were off to a pretty good start. I’m an atheist, I always have been. I’ve always thought that all religion is baseless and that creationism is especially stupid, not to mention historically inaccurate and dogmatic (more on that part later). I am also, for the most part, a political liberal. I was (and am) deeply embedded in the demographic of people who are expected to (and often “do”) love Bill Nye.

The success of Nye’s Big Think video revived his celebrity and landed him his next big public performance: a debate with a moderately prominent Australian-American evangelical by the name of Ken Ham. Ken Ham at the time had founded the organization Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum located in Petersburg, Kentucky. I know little about what Ken Ham has done since then because I honestly don’t give a flying eff about him, but I know through happenstance that he recently founded the Ark Encounter theme park. The subject of the debate was the validity of young-Earth creationism. Some people were outraged that Nye would supposedly grant legitimacy to such a position by debating it in a formal setting, but I was never one of them. I, for all the reasons John Stuart Mill laid out in On Liberty, believe that a robust marketplace of ideas is the cornerstone of any civil, democratic society. I believe that challenging a young Earth creationist is a great way to make them look like the ignorant morons or, in the case of Ham, the con artists they are. In order to do this effectively though, you have to really lay into them. Alright, should be easy enough for a science guy like Mr. Nye to handle. Ultimately, it sort of was. Did Bill Nye win the debate? Sure, but any atheist-leaning fifth grader with straight Bs could win a debate against a bloody young Earth creationist. The point is, Nye should have absolutely eviscerated Ken Ham, but he did not. You could not possibly count the number of times Ham espoused blatantly fabricated information or made hilariously fallacious arguments only to go completely unrebutted by Nye, who preferred to stick to repeating the same lukewarm talking points throughout the entire course of the night. Did Nye have some good moments? Sure, he seems to have scored a lot of brownie points with his rant about Noah’s Ark, but any other public intellectual would have handed Ken Ham his ass in a way even the most dedicated Bill Nye sycophant could admit Nye did not. This was when I was first made aware of how appalling Mr. Nye is in debates, formal or otherwise.

Bill Nye, who holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, has since continued to grow his platform through frequent appearances on late night shows and cable news. He also co-hosts the Startalk Radio podcast, has a new politically-minded Netflix series, and has written a few of books. Now more popular than ever, he is primarily known as an alarm-sounder on the issue of climate change and this is what the bulk of his work today is dedicated too. Bill Nye has however found the time to comment on other science-related issues as well. He supports fracking and was skeptical of GMOs until a visit to Monsanto changed his mind. The fact that he was ever anti-GMO to begin with is quite astonishing and to add insult to injury, he only changed his mind after he visited a Monsanto lab. Truly a man of science, he presumably looked through as much peer-reviewed research as he could on the topic in order to form his opinion and then changed his mind after an anecdotal trip to a lab operated by a massive, abusive corporation with a clear business interest in GMO development. He also decided to barrel into the very new and very unsettled scientific realm of gender in his recent show where he made highly controversial claims as if they were gospel. In reality, the topic is widely disputed and poorly understood. Nye has also continued to create videos with Big Think. At this point there are dozens of them, some of which have been so problematic that I would need to dedicate an entire article to each one in order to address all of their problems. Two such videos were on philosophy and abortion. In the former, Nye acted like a stoner because that’s apparently what philosophers do and in the second he set up ridiculous straw men and made one muddled, bizarre argument after the other. Considering the fact that so many people (be them liberal or conservative) proudly suspend all rules of logic when it comes to abortion in favour of rhetoric and euphemisms, I doubt many (or any) of his fans processed how irrelevant, if not nonexistent, his points in that Big Think video were. Nye can’t even make simple points like “racism is bad” without messing them up. Yes, when a guy from Norway has an “interaction” (as Nye put it) with a woman from Africa and impregnates her, you get a human. The vast majority of racists, even pretty hard-core ones, would agree with him. The concept of a “race” in human terms does not refer to a species, but to what could best be described as a very large family who shares certain traits. Once again, in some ways Nye isn’t wrong but he seemingly doesn’t understand the conversation. I believe in man-influenced climate change and agree with Nye’s new stance on GMOs, but to say that Nye is free of the political influences that he rails against would be disingenuous.

As I mentioned, Bill Nye spends most of his time in the media sphere advocating that we take more action against climate change, a reasonable sentiment which I share. What I take issue with here is not so much his stances, but his skills as an activist and commentator. When talking about climate change, Nye has a tendency to rehash the same arguments to support his case. He frequently brings up examples of the effects climate change is projected to have and is currently having, he also does an okay job explaining the basics of the greenhouse effect. When faced with real or hypothetical opposition though, he has a tendency to resort to any one of three recurring talking points, all of which are either bad arguments or pivots. The first and most common talking point he employs is the famous “97% of scientists agree” line. This line is about as obvious an example of the “appeal to authority” fallacy as there could be. Whether or not they are versed in all the different logical fallacies that exist, most people can immediately see the problem with this argument. There was a time when the majority of scientists thought that black people weren’t fully human. Just because the majority of experts in a field believe something doesn’t make it true, in fact there have been many instances throughout history when they were dead wrong and people paid serious consequences as a result. The second common, and kind of bizarre, line that Bill Nye often busts out when things get heated is his “facts are facts” spiel. Right off the bat it is mind-bogglingly condescending when he implies that people don’t care about facts. Do people believe a lot of stupid, untrue bullshit? Yes, but get this; they think the things they believe are factually true. Of course they do. Nye doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t just say that what you’re saying is fact; you have to explain why it is. You cannot simply say that things are facts because they’re facts, that’s circular logic. Lastly, Bill Nye constantly gets accusatory with people who either don’t believe in climate change or appear too skeptical. Even if the individual in question is actually some disingenuous shill who is deliberately lying, when he accuses them it is almost always a clear pivot away from a tough question that was posed to him. This tactic of his has a self-righteous and authoritarian flavour so strong that even I can’t keep my inner asshat from laughing an evil laugh at his expense when he employs it.

Many of Nye’s most devastating flaws were on full display in his heated near ten minute exchange with Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. The point that caused the most contention was when Tucker Carlson asked Bill Nye to what extent humans are responsible for climate change. This was a very reasonable question, to which Nye had no answer despite the fact that climate scientists actually do have estimations that someone like Nye really ought to have had handy. Carlson pointed out that Nye had no answer to his question, and Nye pivoted to asking Carlson why he isn’t concerned about climate change, a tactic I described in the last paragraph. At the end of the interview Carlson effectively discredited Nye by saying “so much of this you don’t know, you pretend that you know, but you don’t know” and based on that interview performance, it’s hard to say Mr. Carlson was wrong. Not only did this interview display the usage of one of Bill Nye’s most common dodges but it also displayed his disappointing lack of knowledge and expertise. In attempt to do damage control Bill Nye released a Big Think video following his appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight where he managed to bat off all three of his flawed talking points in less than four and a half minutes.

Caitlin Gibson of the Washington Post showered Bill Nye with praise following his appearance at The March for Science. While not insignificant, the March for Science was effectively a gathering of people communicating with other people who already agree with them. We’ve seen the stats; we’ve seen the electoral outcomes. The cold political reality is that more people need to be convinced that not only is human-impacted climate change occurring but that dealing with it should be a priority. When we look at developed countries all around the world we see them time and time again electing people who don’t really give a damn about climate change. This may *gasp* be influenced by the fact that not very many people prioritize climate change as an issue when they go to the voting booths. We’re talking about almost no Republicans and surprisingly few Democrats. Bill Nye does nothing to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with him, and they are right to not be convinced by Nye with his smug demeanour and bad arguments. The through line throughout every critique of Bill Nye is his astounding authoritarianism, real and perceived. Nye’s constant asserting that the “debate is over”, his constant scolding of skepticism, is fundamentally anti-science and anti-reason. I can tell where Nye is coming from with these statements, but to many Nye just appears cowardly and they may very well be right. Bill Nye doesn’t even have an unambiguously pro-free speech stance, so not only is he a coward in the eyes of dissenters, but he’s also a crazy SJW coming for your free speech! Nye’s attitudes make him far less likeable and far more vulnerable to critique than he needs to be. Bill Nye’s dissenters not only don’t like him, but don’t even respect him. Machiavelli famously contended that it is better to be feared than loved when seeking power and influence. The last thing Bill Nye is, in any capacity, is feared by his dissenters. The fact that they are so willing and so eager to have him on their shows is evidence of this. Instead of viewing him as a formidable adversary, the climate-skeptical right treats Nye as nothing more than a punching bag. There are many well-documented cases where people with weak arguments were able to win people over with their personalities and rhetoric. Similarly, most people (myself not included) consider Richard Dawkins to be a condescending dick, but he is still able to reach some of them because he has good arguments. What utility does Bill Nye have as an activist if he lacks both the personality and the arguments to appeal to those who he does not already agree with?

Look, I’m not a scientist, I’m not even an aspiring scientist, but I do care about science. I care about the scientific method, the search for truth, and the maintenance of sharp, scientific minds. Science is inseparable from reason and someone who has repeatedly shown himself to be anything but utterly reasonable is not fit to be the face of science or any major environmental movement for that matter. If there is demand for fifty more seasons of Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix that’s fine, but don’t anoint him as the public face of empirical inquiry. This is where people love to chime in and ask me why I don’t take up the mantle, if I think Bill Nye so bad after all. If I was on a plane and discovered that the pilot was someone who had equivalent, lesser, or even slightly superior piloting abilities than my own, I would freak the hell out. Being the public face of science should require that you meet a very high standard and I’m not so naive to think that I would be anything close to an appropriate fit, but I know for a fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of people who are far more suited to the task than either Nye or myself. It’s time to pay more attention to these people and less attention to an engineer turned entertainer who’s best function is serving as fodder for “Tucker Carlson DESTROYS Smug Leftist Bill Nye” videos on YouTube.

Liberal journalists (with few exceptions) can’t get enough of the guy, but I will maintain for the sake of science and for the sake of my own intellectual honesty that the emperor wears no clothes. Not even a little red bow tie.