Nye, Tyson bringin science back into spotlight

By: Aaron Heiumbuck

Remember, I’m sure you can, those days where the room was dark. Your eyes are hard to keep open and the cold temperature of the room was radiating as you silently shivered in your hard, cheap plastic chair. Then the light from the projector beamed onto the front wall of the room. The Bill Nye theme song kicks itself out of the broken down and scratchy sound system. A smile unfurls onto your face and all of your awakened classmates.

Soon the nerdy and enthusiastic, Bill Nye jumps onto the screen and rambles off into some theory or definition relating to sub-atomic particles or planetary alignment, and for the rest of the class your mind is entertained.

Before a year or two ago, I had noticed a drop off in Nye. His name was never really spoken unless it was to discuss how awesome he had been. Not until a year ago, did I notice his name popping up in news stories and articles. How he publicly stood for the global climate change theories and shared his stance on evolution. This also occured with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, jumping onto the scene with his show on FOX; Cosmos: A spacetime odyssey.

To show he’s finally away from grade-school science, Nye recently published a book, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation. He writes in this book what he has experienced through his eyes and what the scientific world around him has discovered since the beginning of darwinism.

Nye is avidly supportive of evolution, and like in his show, provides complicated and extravagant examples.

Like, for example, when he compares an owl to a boeing 747 airplane. At first it seemed unrealistic that such a humongous piece of metal could be compared to a barn owl. Then, like an extremely complicated puzzle, he takes facts and his own personal experience and builds up from an abstract example to the finish. He gives you an easy way of comparing how human and natural evolution work. How both humans and nature have given birds winglets to conserve energy and fly more efficiently.

Another interesting comparison he makes is the history of earth and the living things and trekking across the United States. It was incredibly complicated to understand at first, but after reading through a couple of times, I was able to finally understand. I think that this symbolizes Nye’s thinking and how himself today, differs from himself in the past.

You might be thinking so far “why does any of this even matter?” Well, since Nye has come out of the bushes along with scientific celebrities like Tyson, they’ve helped the scientific community gain eyes and media attention. They’ve helped people recognize the power that science has to take down big topics like climate change and show people how dangerous it really is.

Nye was the person who brought to my attention the two degrees celsius theory. The theory states that if global average temperature rises two degrees celsius — it’s at 0.86 degrees right now — then the national disasters we see will be more frequent and more devastating. Although this is just a theory, it brings a whole new light to my attention.

In short, Nye has done so much for the world and community of science. He’s helped bring attention to important subjects that need to be addressed, like climate change. Nye has done so much, even when he ran a simple children’s science show. I think that his exuberant personality is the reason for current science’s return to somewhat popularity.