Bill Nye Does Not Speak for Us and He Does Not Speak for Science

If you withdraw from participating in the government for the mere reason that it's connected to Trump in general, you're not gonna push any of your agendas forward.

If we brought this attitude into our personal lives, it would make our interactions with family members and colleagues impossible! I disagree with Uncle Bob about X, so therefore it doesn't matter that we have Y in common; I have to condemn him completely. One of my co-workers has a different attitude towards business aspect X than me; therefore, we can't work together on business aspect Y.

Only associating with people whose views are in complete alignment with your own is a good way to become lonely, angry, and ineffective.

If you ever want to affect change, you have to talk to and interact with people you don't agree with.

There may be other issues at play here, but accusing someone of endorsing all of the viewpoints of an administration when said person has expressly disavowed those viewpoints shouldn't be ignored. Bill Nye is trying to move forward one point (promoting NASA and space exploration), and I don't think he's in a position to also move forward every other political and social issue mentioned in the letter.

We can all do better, but I don't think we do better when we attack others.

" Further, from his position of privilege and public popularity, Bill Nye is acting on the scientific community’s behalf, but without our approval." He hasn't been voted into any position, he's a private citizen who may go where he pleases without seeking or needing anyone else's approval. This article is trolling and seeks only to destroy character.

The authors of this article displays a fair bit of hubris in assuming that they and their organization speaks for all scientists. It certainly does not speak for me. As a former scientist (worked in a government lab) who does not practice science anymore, I find the current model of conducting and reporting science in the U.S., and in general the western hemisphere, to be fundamentally flawed. My position is not based on sour grapes persay, as I was very effective at attracting funding and publishing papers. Rather I've found that scientists display a high level of self-righteousness in what are moral topics from a philosophical perspective, yet exhibit by the very same characteristics that motivate other "lesser" mortals, including politicians, such as greed (funding), recognition (paper count), and appeal to authority (reputation of authoring organization/university).

In my humble opinion, scientists have strayed far from their mandate to understand and discover nature and entered politics for personal, self-serving reasons. The field of science is suffering as a result.

Trump derangement syndrome is so extreme that simply attending the SOTU is all it takes for Scientific American to completely turn on this guy.

People really need to take a deep breath and take a step back from the ledge. This is a childish embarrassment.

Then it says to ignore his _explicit_ rejection of the administration's actions and just accept that his presence is an _implicit_ endorsement.

Then it goes on to assert that Bill Nye's popularity damages the scientific community's image because he is a nerdy white man. Apparently he also shouldn't hold public, civil debates with anyone either.

The whole thing reads like a hit piece to me. I haven't heard of the 500 Women Scientists organization before, but this does not leave me with a good first impression.

If Bill Nye truly valued his own brand more than he valued scientific progress would he not have chosen to boycott the SOTU, disassociated himself from this administration's NASA, and written his own version of this exact article?

I understand that if your agenda is creating a fair immigration process or marriage equality or improving our public education system then you might decide that boycotting this administration is the best way to push that agenda... Since this administration is clearly not serving those interests... But, if your agenda is scientific progress or increasing mankind's presence in space then boycotting this administration probably isn't the best way to push that agenda. If anything, this clearly shows that that, more than the other things, is what Bill Nye cares about...

Bill Nye is showing he supports the current policies by appearing at a State of the Union with Republicans.

Bill Nye is choosing to work with those in power to try to have influence in the directions they choose to go. Elon Musk often argued this was his reasoning as well.

I personally think the first opinion is very sad & results in a country that is torn apart by conflicting ideas. I disagree with the article. We need more people who are willing to work with those who they strongly disagree with. Butting heads constantly seems pointless. Agree to disagree & find some common ground where you can make improvements, even if that means you disagree on 99.9999% of things. Start with the 0.0001% and then try to leverage that into getting the other side to agree with 1% of your ideas.

That’s kind of ironic. The author’s claim that Bill Nye claims to speak for the entire scientific community (really?!?) and yet it seems they imply they speak for the entire scientific community. Under whose authority?

There are so many issues here. Firstly, what do they want? It seems they say if you are a scientist you can’t advise Trump or his team. Sure, Trump is a troglodyte and his science congressman is very much anti-science, but you can’t advise him or attend the U.S. government’s State of the Union?

Secondly, they called him a combatitive and nerdy white guy. Apparently that means he can’t promote science because by his very existence he promotes an outdated stereotype of scientists. All-righty then.

Thirdly, they mention him debating Ken Ham. Apparently, this was the sole reason Ham could make a Creationist museum. What utter hog-wash. Sure, the museum is an oddity, but America allows and even often rejoices in its oddballs. That’s because it celebrates diversity - the very thing they are upset about in the Trump Whitehouse. And it’s not at all apparent to me that Bill Nye made Ham get enough funds for his museum - sure it may have helped but Ken Ham would almost certainly have gotten those funds anyway, eventually. And what was Nye’s alternative? Not debate him? Then Ham could claim that his argument is so strong that scientists like Ham are afraid of debating him!

This article, frankly, is bullshit. I agree with their concerns over Trump’s deliberate degradation of science in America. But dragging Bill Nye into this is absurd, and completely counter-productive.

I understand if that seems like an untenable view for some with regards to this administration, but the alternative is often much worse.

For the record, I support Bill Nye's decision to do what Bill Nye thinks is best, concurrently with a first round voluntary layoffs that will assuredly affect me within the DOE.

To claims someone is no longer credible because he accepted an invitation to hear a President's State of the Union speech is outrageous. You know what no longer "Speaks for Science?" Scientific American.

> run by someone who votes against their civil rights.

with a link to: https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/this-is-the-first-time-...

but with multiple skimmings I can't find a reference in that article to where Bridenstine had voted against civil rights. Can anyone help clarify, please?

I do see references to "comments" and "barbs," but not votes:

> past comments deriding the Supreme Court decision to declare same-sex marriage constitutional and legal protections for transgender students using bathrooms, as well political barbs

The author's claim is certainly not the case, as the very first episode of Bill Nye Saves the World shows. By accompanying "the other side" to the dance does not mean they will. MAYBE Nye is just going to hear and is perhaps intellectually curious about the claims to those of which he has challenged before. It does not mean he tacitly agrees. It does mean that the author has inferred that through some partisan "not like me" lens. This is terrible.

"Bill Nye does not speak for us or for the members of the scientific community who have to protect not only the integrity of their research, but also their basic right to do science."

This is a great example of how ideology eats itself.

> even introduced legislation to remove Earth sciences from NASA’s scientific mission.

This particular sponsor is time deaf.

I don't want Nye to be demonized, but unfortunately if you associate with an administration that denies climate change, these are the consequences; you'll be associated with climate change denial.

The takeaway from all of this, is Bill Nye understands these consequences and made the choice to attend the SOTU.

So be it.

The author of the paper is blinded by one-sided political views.

The whole thing is a farce.

We're talking Trump here; a vociferous enemy of science and fierce climate change denier. By his own actions and admissions!

Why is it so difficult to understand this scientist's position?