A look at the “Bill Nye” quadrant of scientific research!

A look at the “Bill Nye” quadrant of scientific research!

The last time we check in on Bill Nye, the “Science Guy”, he was addressing a large crowd at the nation’s capital as part of the nationwide #MarchForScience. It’s a good thing that his being old, white, and male did not prevent him from leading the anti-Trump, climate alarmism hysterics!

Interestingly, some of his once-stated scientific theories, discussed during his long-running program for kids that made him a science icon, have undergone a political climate change!

Last week The Federalist reported on an illuminating segment from a mid-1990s episode of “Bill Nye the Science Guy” that clashes directly with modern transgender ideology. It appears that someone cut this segment from a re-release of the episode.

In the clip reported on by The Federalist, pulled from the January 19, 1996 episode of the series, a young woman explains that “inside each of our cells are these things called chromosomes, and they control whether we become a boy or a girl.” She goes on to explain how we all receive sex chromosomes from both parents, leading to a fertilized egg’s 50/50 chance of being a boy or a girl.

This clashes directly with Nye’s current feelings on sex: in a recent episode of his new Netflix series, “Bill Nye Saves the World,” Nye claims that the “male and female” binary is “more like a kaleidoscope.” Instead of the simple XX and XY combinations, Nye asserts that “we see more combinations than that in real life.”

“What makes someone male or female,” Nye says, “isn’t so clear-cut.”

It appears that videotape has as long a memory as the internet!

There seems to be obvious deterioration in Nye’s ability to apply logic, reason and discretion in his public statements. For example, on his Netflix show (Bill Nye Saves the World) pondered the possibilities of punishing people who choose to have large families in developed countries.

Travis Rieder, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, told Mr. Nye it was a good idea.

“I do think that we should at least consider it,” he said.

“Well, ‘at least consider it’ is like ‘do it,’” Nye replied.

I guess Nye wants to save the world for everyone else except those enjoying a Western lifestyle.

Professor Jacobson has been discussing the new “Cultural Revolution” on campuses across the country, which includes the harassment of instructors who do not tow the progressive line on a wide array of hot, cultural topics. Mike LaChance reported on one of the victims of this revolution, Judith Curry.

Curry is a respected climatologist and was once chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She resigned after being harassed and pilloried academically for the thought crime of questioning the accuracy of obviously flawed climate models.

In response to a recent discussion on her blog, a reader offered a new take on Pasteur’s Quadrant (assessing use-inspired basic research):

Curry expanded upon this graphic:

… [H]ere are other attributes of this quadrant:

• Second order belief – allegiance to consensus. Individual has not done primary research on the relevant topic or has not conducted an independent assessment of the evidence and research.
• Shutting down scientific debate; science as dogma
• Alarmism as a tactic to influence the public debate
• Political activism and advocacy for particular policy solutions
• Scientism: a demand that science dictate public policy
• Advocacy research

…The scariest thing about this quadrant is that this is the quadrant of science that is driving the media and public debate.

As “Nye Quandart” is now refuting the chromosomal aspect of gender and is seriously discussing population control, it is very scary indeed. To paraphrase a famous Thomas Dolby song of the 1980’s: He blinded me with nonsense.

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