Nye not the science guy

I have never like Bill Nye, the self-proclaimed "science guy," because he is not really a science guy at all.  He has forgotten what science is and what science is not.  Science is not conclusions but method.  Science is not a set of values, morals, or presuppositions.  Science is not the end.  Yet that is precisely the problem.  People like Nye have defined science by their political, ethical, and religious (or irreligious) beliefs and have worked (rather effectively, I admit) to presume this identity.  They have hijacked science in the name of progressivism and are intent upon tearing down anyone and everyone who will not follow where they lead.  They reject the idea that science and its ends must be constantly compared to the values that determine whether or not this is the path to go or the path to avoid.  Science in the hands of Nye and his cohorts is not science at all -- it is possibility untethered from any estimation of what is good or right or true.  Nye would have us release science from all judgment of what is beneficial and what is harmful.

Science is a wonderful tool and a powerful method for understanding the world around us.It's tools are observation, measurement, testing, experimentation, replication, and the such --  all of which are relatively amoral.  Science is very good at expanding knowledge and learning facts, but science cannot tell us what to do with what it has observed or estimated.  It has no conscience.  We must tell its right from wrong, its good from bad, and its morality from immorality. Perhaps the most dangerous thing that Nye and his kind of self-appointed advocates for science advocates is not only that they blur those critical distinctions but they label everyone who does apply a conscience to science as anti-science. So if you have questions about the morality of reproductive technology, for example, you are anti-science.  Nye is dangerous because he wants to remove every constraint from the free ability of science to do what can be done and to go where it leads.

Finally, the power of science is in the ability of others to replicate what others have done and the scientific consensus is not about what is reasonable but what has been observed.  This is exactly the problem today.  So much of what is part of the current debate over such things as global warming is related to our inability to find conclusive evidence that others can replicate to determine the extent of human cause for an observable reality.  Nye forgoes all such careful judgment and rushes us to conclusions that do not have such replicated evidence and he sets it all free from the value judgment of what is beneficial or humane.  So in his book and in the judgment of others, humans can be seen as intruders to pristine nature and the fetus less than human when it serves their presuppositions.

Real science is no foe to religion and faith no foe to real science.  We need each other.  It is no secret that science flourished under the financial support and moral leadership of the Christian university.  Yes, of course, there were problems.  Scientists and the religious authorities over them are all sinners and sin has a way of clouding every sunny sky, doesn't it.  But the solution is not to abandon science to determine on its own what ought to be done with what is observed and where to go with the technology that makes it possible.  St. Paul said it best.  What is possible is not always beneficial.  This is the moral higher plane that only humanity, the crown of God's creation, possesses.  Even with sin, we have a conscience and we have the Word of God.  Not to listen to these voices is a foolish as not to listen to science.

Read another view here. . .