Author Topic: Tucker crushes Bill Nye, calls him a bully: You just pretend … ‘You’re not a scientist! You’re a popularizer.’  (Read 2325 times)

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Online Bigun

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And your degree is in what?

Started out as EE major figured out I didn't need it and went to work instead.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline Just_Victor

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Started out as EE major figured out I didn't need it and went to work instead.

I really HATE that I find myself in the position of defending Bill Nye on the basis of his education.  People that I deeply respect want to claim that his education as an engineer make him ineligible to comment on scientific issues.

That is Bullshit.

Take on the man on the basis of his claims.  He's wrong.  But not because he has a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2017, 01:54:56 am by Just_Victor »
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Offline Idaho_Cowboy

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I really HATE that I find myself in the position of defending Bill Nye on the basis of his education.  People that I deeply respect want to claim that his education as an engineer make him inalligable to comment on scientific issues.

That is Bullshit.

Take on the man on the basis of his claims.  He's wrong.  But not because he has a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
Bingo. He's not a "scientist" because he's not using science to make his point. Likewise, folks who don't have the degree can use science to make their arguments.
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Offline truth_seeker

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I really HATE that I find myself in the position of defending Bill Nye on the basis of his education.  People that I deeply respect want to claim that his education as an engineer make him inalligable to comment on scientific issues.

That is Bullshit.

Take on the man on the basis of his claims.  He's wrong.  But not because he has a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
I have a business degree, but took a few math and science classes classes. Worked my way through college, as an engineering assistant to a geologist and a petroleum engineer, both MS guys.

Took an undergraduate class in "Geography," but the professor's passion was the weather, so each global region was taught through the lens of climate, on it's characteristics.
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Offline thackney

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I was in the Cornell College of Engineering a bit later than Mr. Nye, but there's a heck of a lot more engineering in that program than science.  That being said, Mr. Nye did take at least one astronomy course, and there were basic physics and chemistry requirements, plus engineering electives that were sciences such as thermodynamics.  And one doesn't do well in those engineering classes without good science understanding.

As a degreed engineer myself, I would say the minimal requirements for physics and chemistry in other areas of engineering are quite a bit beyond what any non-engineer would consider "basic".
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BS MS PMS I think seeing as how the Nye is such a VIP. Shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT, cos if it leaks to the VC he could end up MIA and we'll all be put on KP?

Online Bigun

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Definition of education

1:
a :  the action or process of educating or of being educated; also :  a stage of such a process
b :  the knowledge and development resulting from an educational process - a person of little education

2: :  the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching and learning in schools

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/education

The mere fact that one has endured innumerable hours in a classroom does NOT make him educated!  Only when one has learned to practically apply his personal body of knowledge to the business of living does he become truly educated.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Offline jmyrlefuller

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Regardless of his actual level of education, Bill Nye made his name on having a middle-school level of expertise on scientific topics, which is hardly enough to understand atmospheric dynamics.

Speaking as someone who actually has a bachelor's degree in atmospheric science, the laws of physics driving the atmosphere and its thermodynamic processes are VERY complicated, dependent upon the physical properties of the gases in the atmosphere among many other factors, and, believe it or not, still not completely understood. While it's theoretically possible Nye might have learned about it as part of his engineering education, I suspect his applied learning was toward some other form of physics. Most of the heavy atmospheric dynamics isn't taught until senior year, and then only to meteorology students.

Bill Nye is not being consulted because of any supposed expertise on climatology (which, by the way, is basically statistics, just applied to weather data, and cannot in and of itself prove any causation). He is being considered an expert because he hosted a TV show that taught science at a middle-school level. That's not right.
« Last Edit: February 28, 2017, 09:50:13 pm by jmyrlefuller »
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Offline LateForLunch

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CG Jung believed that the essential inclinations of human psychology (such as priests, parental figures etc.) will always emerge in society regardless of where that society evolved. The proclivity for human societies to create a "priest class" who are ostensibly vested with esoteric knowledge not generally understood or accessible to the greater population and who often exercise that station to become elitists endures over the ages.

Western society underwent the Enlightenment, which among other things placed scientific method and rationality above tradition/theology as the foundations of social systems. In that process the lofty position of priests as an elite ruling class vanished. However it did not vanish as an archetype but was instead replaced.

The "priest class" of the Age of Reason became of course scientists. And true to form, the human psyche elevated scientists into that aristocratic station formerly occupied by priests - not generally understood because they deal in esoteric, advanced knowledge. Like priests, many feel that though they do not understand them, they should not be questioned, only trusted because they represent they're "betters". So the scientists become the new priests.

The meritocratic system places people with technical knowledge in another context - consultants whose job is not just to wield savant status, but to provide a service to society as functionaries of investment and construction of good works. Partners, who are required to make themselves understood - to management at the very least and at times to the general public where political issues come to the fore.

Just as many British demonstrate their deep-seated  proclivity to live vicariously through royals (even in an age when most can live full, long lives of their own) many people in our so-called "modern" age still gravitate to a desire to place some members of our society in exalted positions where they are not to be questioned or understood, only obeyed and trusted without question.

As much respect as I have for people with technical degrees, those who seek to use them as an excuse to refuse to answer simple questions understandably or explain/justify their opinions with objective, comprehensible, clearly-stated information without the ATTITUDE can KMA.

I have as little patience with such people as I would with a voodoo shaman or a grand interegator from the Church during the Spanish Inquisition.  Nye seeks to place himself and his ilk in a position of immunity from the responsibility to provide substantiation for his ridiculous claims because he likely claims that "people are either too mentally ill or too ignorant to understand".

Frankly, I'd say that description fairly well sums up my own attitude to people like Nye. I would be more inclined to want to defenestrate them than to believe a word they say.
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Offline kidd

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I was in the Cornell College of Engineering a bit later than Mr. Nye...
Cool.
BSChE '83 here.

I missed Bill Nye by a couple of years, but Bill Nye ('77) was there around the same time as Bill Maher ('78) (possibly my least favorite person)

I bumped into Ann Coulter ('84) a few times, but didn't get to know her well at the time. Engineering was still apolitical then and Ann was an editor of the Cornell Review (conservative publication).

Offline Weird Tolkienish Figure

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I think we likely are changing the climate, albeit possibly not in any measurable way. There are 7 billion of us, it's reasonable to assume we are changing the climate. Just the heat output alone from engines is probably affecting climate.


That being said, I dont' see much evidence for any harm being done to the earth at all. Go outside and look around. Bird are still chirping, crops are growing. Seas don't seem to be rising at all.

Offline Suppressed

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Offline Frank Cannon

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I would love to see how a Bachelor of Science student does in analyzing (mathematically, that is) the harmonic structure of a Brahms' intermezzo, or how well you'd do in writing an analysis of the Sonata Allegro form as it's used in the Kyrie movements of the late Haydn Masses.

That's what we "lazy" people do while we're sailing through our "lazy" BA degrees......

I was cutting to the chase because I was about to have a meeting. Science has multiple meanings and with degrees it mostly has to do with the level of study in a Bachelors, not the subject matter.

Offline TomSea

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Way to go Tucker,

We've all seen the loud, bullying, vulgar boors, they deserve a swift kick, bullying filth.

Offline Norm Lenhart

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I really HATE that I find myself in the position of defending Bill Nye on the basis of his education.  People that I deeply respect want to claim that his education as an engineer make him ineligible to comment on scientific issues.

That is Bullshit.

Take on the man on the basis of his claims.  He's wrong.  But not because he has a BS in Mechanical Engineering.

Just as a side note and a hyper-condensed one at that, My kid got her masters degree in business while in the Air Force. Her prof held up a couple examples of her papers to the class as 'stunningly innovative thinking' and other popular academic buzzwords. Her papers consisted of the basics of economics that most here learned in High School 30+ years ago.

Today, Masters level education isn't what us older types think of as 'education' at all. Hopefully the hard science degrees are different because math isn't so easy to get around where feelings are concerned. If the hard sciences are hosed to the degree the others are, I expect to see a lot of building collapses and such in our not too distant future.

Offline TomSea

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Carlson put this Trump hating vomit right in their place, traitors, fake conservatives.

Offline LateForLunch

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I think we likely are changing the climate, albeit possibly not in any measurable way. There are 7 billion of us, it's reasonable to assume we are changing the climate. Just the heat output alone from engines is probably affecting climate.


That being said, I dont' see much evidence for any harm being done to the earth at all. Go outside and look around. Bird are still chirping, crops are growing. Seas don't seem to be rising at all.

Don't buy into the narrative. The size of this planet is literally beyond human comprehension unless you use mathematics as a guide. Human beings occupy only 5% of the planet's livable surface. Also, every day the sun radiates 30 nonillion watts of energy onto the face of Terra - that's roughly 10 million times the amount of energy that the entire human race could generate in an entire year - EVERY DAY. Not only that, nature emits anywhere from an average of 10 to 100 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year from decay of vegetation, deep ocean current upwelling of methane, natural plains/forest fires, volcanoes than the human race. And of course, carbon dioxide is an inert trace gas which is never much more than an average of 0.04 % of the atmosphere to which nature contributes the much large amount. So human beings contribute only a fraction of THAT amount. To compound the Human Race's insignificance, the effect of trace gases on downward forcing of black body radiation (atmospheric heat retention) is almost inconceivably minuscule relative to the other contributions of energy to the total climatic heat distribution/mediation in the system. We must compare human contribution to not only variations in solar radiant output, but also cosmic ray effects on upper atmosphere cloud formation, variations in orbit, variations in axial tilt, distribution of the biggest "greenhouse gas" H20 in the form of vapor, fog, humidity,variations in  ocean currents, lakes, rivers, rain and Coriolis wind variations - any single factor which contributes more energy to the system than human trace gas emissions.

Bottom line is, all intuitive feeling-centered impressions to the side, to believe that the minuscule human contributions to the climatic heat effects could somehow overwhelm the energy contributed by the other total energy of all of those other factors combined, is to believe that a spit-wad could derail a freight train.

Sometimes intuitions are wrong. Sometimes the raw reality of mathematics overwhelms impressions based on gross daily subjective experiences or notions of humanity's assumed puissance relative to the totality of the enormity of the universe.

That's why the mass media never, never NEVER talk about the raw numbers. Physicists model large planetary systems using total energy contributions as the guide. Emotional impressions have no real value in that model except in regard to poetry or musings in reverie on a lazy country outing or nodding by the fire.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2017, 07:31:21 am by LateForLunch »
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Offline DB

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Started out as EE major figured out I didn't need it and went to work instead.

What did you go to work doing?

« Last Edit: March 01, 2017, 10:31:21 am by DB »

Online Bigun

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What did you go to work doing?

Oil, Gas, and petrochemicals.  Often in places most people never heard of.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien