WhatFinger


Nye's response? "Stop it."

Enjoy: Princeton physicist schools Bill Nye on the truth about carbon dioxide



Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, Bill Nye the "science guy" is not a scientist. He is a "science educator" (whatever that means) and more pertinently, a media celebrity. He makes a lot of declarations about things like global warming, and presents his opinions as if they're coming from someone with authority and credibility. But he is not a scientist and doesn't really have the credentials to present his claims as an authority. William Happer, by contrast, is a scientist. He's a physicist at Princeton University. He knows that global warmism is based on alarmism and faulty models. And he's not afraid to say so, even though Nye wants very badly for him to shut up and, in fact, demands that he do so:

March for Science

Here's how you know that Happer is a scientist and Nye isn't. Happer does what scientists does, which is to look at data and question the conclusions some have drawn from it. There's a concept in science called peer review, in which a scientist who has a theory gives his peers in the scientific community the opportunity to question and challenge it. Hopper is challenging and questioning the theories of scientists who agree with Nye. Nye wants no part of this, even going so far as to tell Happer to "stop it" and fall into line. Happer, to his credit being outnumbered as you'd expect on CNN, declines to do so. This whole "March for Science" thing is based on a totally wrong concept of what science is and how it works. Science is a process. It is a method by which things are discovered, analyzed and understood. It contains plenty of room for disagreement and debate, and real scientists understand that what science seems to tell us today can be undermined tomorrow by new data, new discoveries or better understandings of things we thought we knew.

Support Canada Free Press


Happer is a scientist and Nye is not, so no one should be surprised by the way this interview turned out

What science is not, and never has been, is some sort of all-powerful authority making declarations from on high. What science also doesn't do is tell us what public policy has to be. Maybe you think the Bill Nye take on global warming is correct. Maybe you agree with William Happer instead. But elected presidents and legislators have to decide what if anything these scientific notions tell us we need to do in the public policy realm. They have to decide if it really makes sense to enact massive taxes and regulatory burdens to counteract what some scientists think is going to happen today and in the future, and whether it's really a big enough problem to warrant the policies Nye and others insist are necessary. But without a doubt, one thing real scientists never do is tell other scientists to shut up and stop asking questions, or expressing skepticism. Questions and skepticism are supposed to be what science is all about. If someone is questioning the validity of your work and you don't like it, the way to respond is with facts and logic, not demands for silence and aspersions on the person's honesty. But then again, Happer is a scientist and Nye is not, so no one should be surprised by the way this interview turned out.


View Comments

Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.


Sponsored