{"id":36131,"date":"2016-08-25T17:44:49","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T23:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=36131"},"modified":"2016-08-25T17:44:49","modified_gmt":"2016-08-25T23:44:49","slug":"when-did-bill-nye-the-science-guy-become-so-insufferable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/when-did-bill-nye-the-science-guy-become-so-insufferable.html","title":{"rendered":"“When Did Bill Nye ‘the Science Guy’ Become So Insufferable?”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Science<\/a>
Bill Nye, \u201cThe Science Guy,\u201d in 2010. (Wikimedia Commons)
I do confess to a visceral and life-long dislike of bow ties. I can\u2019t see why people who wear them don\u2019t just go whole hog and put on a red clown nose, as well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve paid him no attention whatever. \u00a0I\u2019ve never, to the best of my recollection, seen him on television nor heard his voice. \u00a0If he\u2019s written anything, I haven\u2019t read it. \u00a0I didn\u2019t watch his debate with the young-earth creationist Ken Ham. \u00a0(For that matter, I\u2019ve never paid any attention to Ken Ham, either. \u00a0I\u2019ve never seen him on television, nor heard his voice, nor read anything that he might have written.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s been impossible to escape hearing Bill Nye\u2019s name. \u00a0I\u2019ve been unable\u00a0to avoid\u00a0being aware that he had a debate with the young-earth creationist Ken Ham.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/article\/439330\/bill-nye-science-guy-climate-change-its-politics-not-science<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve even been told that Ken Ham\u2019s defeat at the hands of Bill Nye represents the defeat of my<\/em> young-earth creationist views. \u00a0Which is rather peculiar, since I hold<\/em> none.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I made a joke a week or two ago about having been informed that I\u2019m\u00a0a young-earth creationist. \u00a0Someone \u2014 I\u2019m sorry, but I don\u2019t recall who it was \u2014 was surprised by that, saying that he had seen no evidence of my holding such views. \u00a0He\u2019s right, of course. \u00a0He\u2019s seen no such evidence because there is<\/em> no such evidence. \u00a0I\u2019m not a young-earth creationist and, so far as I can recall, have never been one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, over the years I\u2019ve read several statements from people whom I don\u2019t know in which those people have informed their audiences that I believe the Earth to be only a few thousand years old. \u00a0Which is true, if you believe 4.543 billion years to be just a few thousand.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I continually<\/em> learn shocking things about myself from hostile\u00a0strangers who post about me online.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, for instance, I read an appalling story from a woman who posts anonymously on an ex-Mormon site. \u00a0It seems that I was so irritated several years back\u00a0with her criticisms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> that I wrote to her husband, demanding that he use his patriarchal authority to silence this uppity female.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, beside the fact that I remember no such incident, there are some other problems. \u00a0For example, I don\u2019t know who this lady is, nor who her husband is. \u00a0Most importantly, though, I would never, ever, ever<\/em> have said such a thing. \u00a0Ever<\/em>. \u00a0The notion of male-female relations presumed in such a hypothetical command from me\u00a0is so far from the way that I think that such an idea\u00a0would never enter my mind. \u00a0(I told my wife about this supposed incident, and she guffawed out loud. \u00a0As would anybody who actually knows me . . . or her.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But then again, who am I to contradict an anonymous stranger on the internet regarding my own personal history or beliefs? \u00a0Who could possibly\u00a0have a more accurate notion about such things than somebody who really hates me but probably hasn\u2019t ever met me? \u00a0And surely nobody who posts anonymously online would ever say something that wasn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from London, England<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019ve paid him no attention whatever. \u00a0I\u2019ve never, to the best of my recollection, seen him on television nor heard his voice. \u00a0If he\u2019s written anything, I haven\u2019t read it. \u00a0I didn\u2019t watch his debate with the young-earth creationist Ken Ham. \u00a0(For that matter, I\u2019ve never paid any attention to Ken Ham, either. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"When Did Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' Become So Insufferable?"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I've paid him no attention whatever. \u00a0I've never, to the best of my recollection, seen him on television nor heard his voice. \u00a0If he's\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/08\/when-did-bill-nye-the-science-guy-become-so-insufferable.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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