This was unexpected. Alarmists are starting to eat their own over Trump. From “Scientific American”, a once great magazine.
Bill Nye Does Not Speak for Us and He Does Not Speak for Science
By attending the State of the Union with NASA administrator nominee Jim Bridenstine, the Science Guy tacitly endorses climate denial, intolerance and attacks on science
By 500 Women Scientists on January 30, 2018
Tonight, Bill Nye “The Science Guy” will accompany Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), Trump’s nominee for NASA Administrator, to the State of the Union address. Nye has said that he’s accompanying the Congressman to help promote space exploration, since, he asserts, “NASA is the best brand the United States has” and that his attendance “should not be … seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community.”
But by attending the SOTU as Rep. Bridenstine’s guest, Nye has tacitly endorsed those very policies, and put his own personal brand over the interests of the scientific community at large. Rep. Bridenstine is a controversial nominee who refuses to state that climate change is driven by human activity, and even introduced legislation to remove Earth sciences from NASA’s scientific mission. Further, he’s worked to undermine civil rights, including pushing for crackdowns on immigrants,a ban on gay marriage, and abolishing the Department of Education.
As scientists, we cannot stand by while Nye lends our community’s credibility to a man who would undermine the United States’ most prominent science agency. And we cannot stand by while Nye uses his public persona as a science entertainer to support an administration that is expressly xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and anti-science.
…
The true shame is that Bill Nye remains the popular face of science because he keeps himself in the public eye. To be sure, increasing the visibility of scientists in the popular media is important to strengthening public support for science, but Nye’s TV persona has perpetuated the harmful stereotype that scientists are nerdy, combative white men in lab coats—a stereotype that does not comport with our lived experience as women in STEM. And he continues to wield his power recklessly, even after his recent endeavors in debate and politics have backfired spectacularly.
Wow, harsh. Read the full excoriation here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/bill-nye-does-not-speak-for-us-and-he-does-not-speak-for-science/
h/t to WUWT reader Clyde Spencer
Wow, name calling is allowed in a “Scientific” Journal? Are you kidding me? What a joke.
There is more truth to this satirical post that I care to admit:
Ban on Fracking is Causing California’s Earthquakes
Best Practice #6: Appeal to the Social Justice Warrior Safe-Space Seeking Liberal Arts Educated Pavlovesque Millennials. Claim that the ban on fracking is racist, sexist and homophobic.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/27/ban-on-fracking-is-causing-californias-earthquakes/
Another icon may be moving on as well:
“California Academy of Sciences Executive Director, Jon Foley, explains why he doesn’t think Bill Nye, Al Gore or Leonardo DiCaprio are the best messengers on getting the word out about climate change.”
http://climateone.org/video/jon-foley-bill-nye-and-bruce-springsteen
At least they’re correct in stating “his recent endeavors in debate and politics have backfired spectacularly.” I’d have to agree with that.
I find it amusing that people are expected to be upset over the removal of Earth sciences from NASA’s charter. Aeronautics and Space. Not Earth, Aeronautics and Space.
I’ll also add that some ado has been made of him being a Mechanical Engineer, rather than a “scientist”. I’ll state that having a degree in engineering doesn’t make one an engineer, just as having a degree — or multiple degrees — in physics, makes one a physicist. Good engineers understand and practice the scientific method in their work. This was taught in engineering school, back in the day when I was there. This is why you earn a Bachelor’s in Science in Mechanical Engineering, rather than, say, a Bachelor’s in Arts. Bill Nye is no more a Mechanical Engineer than I am a ballerina (I’m not – trust me!). You can take classes and get passing grades, write theses — whatever — but this doesn’t make you either an engineer or a scientist. A ditch digger can be a scientist if said digger practices the scientific method. A person possessing a PhD in physics is not a scientist if said PhD does not practice the scientific method.
Meant to say “just as having a degree — or multiple degrees — in physics, doesn’t make one a physicist”.
In the climate wars, I find the easiest way to identify a pseudo-scientist climateer is by their assertion that the CO2-CAGW hypothesis should be regarded as the null hypothesis in the rejection of natural variation as the principle cause of the late-20th century warming trend.
The climateer-hypothesis inverter completely disregards the fact that natural variation (whether solar, ocean cycle, orbital changes) was causal of 4+ billion years of Earthly climate change and that it magically ceased in/about 1950 simply because they say it did to promote their belief.
The scientific method is inconvenient for the climateer and their acquisition of grants and public notoriety.
exactly!
I think it is idiotic and redundant for an agency dedicated to “aeronautics and space” to do “earth science” work when the U.S. Geological Survey exists.
The cross-over confusion is somewhat caused by the tools used to conduct the research. Because they are studying earth… from space… using satellites, NASA has assumed the primary mission role.
The USGS should be responsible for geologic studies with NASA only providing services. Currently most people only think the USGS produces topographical maps.
rocketscientist,
The USGS was responsible for the launch, maintenance, and data processing of the original Landsat satelites. NASA has elbowed its way into joint responsibility for processing in recent years. I think that the lines of responsibility should be drawn between hardware, and data processing and analysis.
“he USGS was responsible for the launch, maintenance, and data processing of the original Landsat satelites.”
I didn’t know that.
I used to have some big picture books of Landsat photographs. I really enjoyed looking at all the pictures of the Earth. They were the best pictures we had at that time.
I understand the point of it maybe being in NASA’s realm based on the use of satellites for data gathering. But oddly enough, I don’t believe NASA GISS uses the satellite data in the construction of their published temperature series. My understanding is that NASA GISS (part of the Earth Sciences dept) uses data from the traditional ground-based thermometer records. I think it’s NOAA and University of Alabama – Huntsville folks — not NASA — who reduce the satellite data. Perhaps I’m mistaken with this, but the best I’ve been able to find, this seems to be the case.
Don S
NASA-GISS uses satellite data from another set of light-sensing satellites to approximate the coverage of US cities near temperature stations, then (adjusts (corrects, modifies, rewrites, updates or corrects) each days (months’ ) average temperatures based on the regional night light amount recorded – for its records going back as far as the 1920’s. This is supposedly to correct for the Urban Heat Island effect – but I fail to see how today’s light levels (which are assumed equal to population density and thus urban heat islands) can be used to adjust temperature records written down by hand prior to last month. But that is Hansen’s agency.
TA,
Do an online search for “EROS Data Center.”
I totally agree Don. I scientist is a person who uses the scientific method to analyze a problem or theory. It definitely does not require a scholastic degree in anything.
It’s a school of thought, more than a thought of schooling.
Even so, it will take me at least a day to get this image of Don in a tutu out of my head.
The women said: “xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and anti-science.”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That’s funny. They left off antitransgender. What a bunch of bigots.
Out-loud snort-laugh! Perfect.
+100
More Trump Derangement Syndrome.
stephen miller actually put words to it:
trump has revolutionized reality tv.
with a cast of millions! on a budget of zero. that’s ROI baby!
Plus many. Consider that putdown ‘borrowed’. Trump really is living inside progessive heads rent free.
and manspreading
one need only hint at the anatomical explanation to induce moar shrivelment.
“Trump really is living inside progessive heads rent free.”
Mass hysteria.
Scientific American publish this howler,
“And we cannot stand by while Nye uses his public persona as a science entertainer to support an administration that is expressly xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and anti-science.”
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Yeah riiight, have yet to see any such evidence for the smears leftists make. Meanwhile Nye is actually trying to help promote NASA space exploration, which I see as a positive but it is a contradiction because another part of NASA promotes a hysterical narrative on Climate topic, which he also supports.
Nye doesn’t really understand how valid research is done.
Propaganda doesn’t promote a lasting legacy for you Billy.
“Science entertainer”! That’s an EXCELLENT description of both Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. And Carl Sagan.
Yikes, I wouldn’t lump Sagan in with them, he at least held up the scientific method and the BS detector from his more worthy predecessors like Popper and Feynman. He let himself a victim of the worries generated by the alarmists of his time and ventured out of his realm of expertise just like the folks you associate him with, but my intuition is that had he not died young he would have become a skeptic in old age.
How about Hawking? Is he a wild-card for the media to pull out, or what?
Seems like they could make him say whatever is convenient, given his circumstances.
Pop Piasa, I doubt anything Hawking supposedly “says” actually comes from him — not for a long time. That’s his close “handlers” speaking. Hawking is being used……
sagan was the holotype for the rockstar noble liar. he’s what the manns and gavins of the world wannabe.
500 Women Scientists makes as much sense as 500 short scientists or 500 scientists with curly hair.
Science with a non-scientific qualifier just makes science less scientific.
That’s true. “Science” has nothing at all to do with what’s between your legs; it’s what’s between your EARS that counts.
Ah, but the brain chemistry is different. Sometimes referred to as “can’t understand normal thought” by their frustrated male soul-mates. Emotion counts in the post-modern scientific clique, mostly due to the presence of properly diverse and indoctrinated personalities cranked out of academia.
The leftist “knowledge class” or “expert class” are the worst. Nobody else’s values matter. Just let them dictate how you should live and thank them for it. Insufferable.
30 years ago when I was in college I read about how the Khmer Rouge executed their intellectuals or sent them to work in the fields like peasants. I didn’t understand it. Seemed crazy.
I still think that is nuts, but I can at least begin to appreciate the peasant revolt against the intellectual class.
“500 Women Scientists is a grassroots organization started by four women who met in graduate school at CU Boulder and who maintained friendships and collaborations after jobs and life took them away from Boulder. Immediately following the November 2016 election, we published an open letter re-affirming our commitment to speak up for science and for women, minorities, immigrants, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA. The mission of 500 Women Scientists is to serve society by making science open, inclusive, and accessible.”
So why is it not called “4 women friends”. They sound blatantly dishonest to me.
somebody suggested that multiple personality disorder was the explanation for individuals adopting the first person plural- but that’s way too plural.
i doubt the explanation, tho- seems more like they just want to wave their we! we!
so this would be weness envy.
Bigger question: why are they (and so many other people) using the NOUN “women” as an adjective? The appropriate ADJECTIVE is “female” (acceptable as a noun or adjective). These women have graduate degrees, yet they are using incorrect words in the name of their “organization”.
Biggest question: what in the world does being male or female have to do with being a scientist? I am a scientist who happens to be female. My femininity is unrelated to being a scientist. My sex has nothing to do with how I act as a scientist. Men and women are different, and tend to perceive the world differently, but that does not affect HOW true scientists carry out their work. We all use the scientific method, we all study natural processes, etc. In a country where women truly are not considered or treated as equal to men, it might be important to emphasize and promote the reality that female scientists are just as capable as male scientists, but the U.S. is not such a country. Plenty of ignorant idiots live here, but the majority of people do not subscribe to the idea that one’s sex determines one’s competency or value.
I do not need the existence of a special organization of female scientists to make it possible for me to express my views as a scientist. There is no reason I cannot do it on my own or through a coed (gasp!) organization. This is just self-indulgent nonsense designed to make people feel like they are somehow “special” and better than the average person.
Here is an idea: do ACTUAL scientific work and let IT show how capable a scientist you are. And if someone asks you to comment on some aspect of being a woman in science, look at them like they are crazy and ask them why they think that your sex has anything to do with working as a scientist.
+100
Very true. The females among the research faculty I supported were just as astute in their specialties as the males. But, they were often much less patient about mechanical problems at the facility (which was my specialty) than their male counterparts, who had a broader knowledge of mechanical systems. Other than that point, there was no gender related trend in my career experiences.
AllyKat,
This is so right! Who would ever dream of naming an org “500 Men Scientists”? Ugh. Painful to even say.
And, yeah, it looks like the idea is truly dead that the product of one’s labor is more meaningful than the group identity one ascribes to.
Allykat: Dr. Judith Curry is an excellent scientist who happens to be a woman. I suggest you study her views on climate change.
seems to me theyre doing the opposite, cetainly NOT open or inclusive makes me remember why i always hated the word feminist as well, i saw and heard enough of this in UNi tours that drove me as far as possible away…from considering going to uni or any forms of higher ed.
having to put up with this sort of idiotic people while trying to actually learn anything was just more than i was willing to do or pay for the so called priveledge.embarrasses me as a female to read this sort of cr*p still ongoing/worse than ever
Not done yet, they go on:
How very tolerant of them. How very inclusive. Oh my.
then they decry harmful a stereotypes but go on to describe the target of their venom as a “nerdy, combative white man”.
Hmmmm, would that not be both racist and sexist? Inquiring minds want to know.
But this stereotype is beyond the beyond:
nerdy, combative
In all my years in the scientific community, I have seen science majors run down as nerds and geeks on college campuses all over the country, and for decades. But combative, combative?
*Never*.
TDS writ large. (Trump derangement syndrome)
nye always comes across as a limp wristed effeminate goof…makes their aspersions even funnier
Tony-san: Combative in this context means “has an opinion different from mine.”
Religions have always attacked heretics with far more force than unbelievers, so this exactly what you expect and there have been plenty before who have found out what happens should they step on foot away from the path of ‘pure’ AGW dogma .
the words for which you grope are heretics and apostates.
George Orwell famously said, “Journalism is printing what somebody else doesn’t want printed. Everything else is public relations.”
“By 500 Women Scientists” that letter just set feminism back 100 years.They just destroyed the credibility of women scientists.
But, but… only one of them had web connection!
Ha! Follow the links and you’ll discover that this political piece wasn’t written by 500 women scientists, it was written by an organization that is merely named ‘500 Women Scientists’.
For all we know there might not be a single actual female scientist in the organization. It might be more accurately named ‘500 Women Activists’.
I feel embarrassed for SA.
At the Anti-Trump March last year (it was marketed as the “Women’s March” by people without the courage of their convictions, but let’s call it what it was), there was a picture of a group of women holding signs with the name of this organization. I think there were less than 20. While it is rare to see 100% turnout, one would think more would show up – if they existed.
I doubt there are strict requirements for joining, other than ideological purity and a poor grasp of parts of speech.
P.S. I appreciate your correct usage of “female scientist”. 🙂
They seem to have a weak grasp when it comes to parts of the body as well.
Mark W:
I see what you did there!
“….xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and anti-science….”
Was it Winston Churchill who said ” I never trusted a man who did not have at least one vice that I admire “?.. of course there were far fewer vices to chose from back then!
I rather admire ‘ableists’ myself.
Cheers
Bahamamike
If only there was a single shred of evidence that supports CO2 impacting climate, but alas there isn’t.
Give it up you lying fools, the average Joe has worked out your scam was all part of the rivers of funding flowing from the climate gravy train.
I think the problem is fundamental. “500 Women Scientists” is only 4 people.
Nye must be a Russian operative. That’s the only logical explanation.
I believe you just insulted Russian Operatives everywhere.
He does appear to be on a mission to discredit the left. CIA ?
No, just left. The left is amply capable of discrediting themselves.
“Never attribute to malice that which is easily explained by incompetence.” Napoléon Bonaparte
Note that the ad in the article linked states. “Scientific American–The Antidote to Anti-Intellectualism–Act Now.” When they have to sell it, they aren’t. They started to publish crisis articles in the 1980s with selective photos. How do 500 scientists have time for this?
Scientific American hasn’t been any good since Martin Gardner retired back in the ’80s.
It really tanked when a big German media company bought it. Same people own Nature. Same people own Merkel.
Recall that this UnScientific UnAmerican rag published a full tilt political attack on Lomborg when he dared to ask logical questions about their lucrative doomsday stories in his ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist.’
This is just more of the same. I guess the next step will be to declare that any criticism of a female scientist’s work will be sexist bullying or something like that.
In the meantime we have ‘scientists’ like K. Hayhoe, perhaps best known for the Permanent Drought of Texas which ended some time ago.
I wonder what the indulgence payments are going to look like after this.
This shud disqualify Bridenstine as NASA lead.
I’m sorry but they seem like a bunch of angry, man-hating, progressive females who happen to have have a science background. The “Science” in their name is secondary to their real goal of marginalizing men. Sarah Myhre is a “leader”, that should tell you all you need to know about these folks. I bet every one of them wore a pussy hat during the Women’s March.
Agree with your basic point about this particular pack of complainers but in this case I do agree with them:
“Bill Nye Does Not Speak for Us and He Does Not Speak for Science”
My only quibble is with this constant use of the word “science” as though it was a thing, not a process.
Processes are things.
I question whether more than a tiny fraction of them actually have a “science background”.
I’m afraid I got stuck trying to picture 500 women all typing the article at the same time. I can’t imagine anything less scientific than hiding attribution behind such an obviously bogus nom de plume. Is the author (or authors) ashamed to sign her name? (Oh, and is that pronoun supposed to now be “xir”?)
The Opinion piece (called an “Observation” in SciAm) is from the organization 500 Women Scientitists. The authorship is not given in the SciAm post — leaving one to believe that 500 women scientists actually sat down and wrote the piece. Obviously not true — signing the piece 500WomenScientists is just another way of saying “Anonymous” but from our advocacy group.
What do they object to? That Nye is Male, and White, and Famous. That he has not expressly supported their (well, that of the real author of the Op-ed) radical-left identity-politics positions.
They (all one of them) is mad because he is attended the SOTU address at all — which should be boycotted because we (500WS) do not support our democratically elected government — and worse that he should attend with a ticket accepted from the next NASA Administrator — who should be officially shunned because “we (meaning “I”) don’t like his politics”.
500Women say it is BAD for “a science entertainer to support an administration that is expressly xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, ableist, and anti-science.” By support, they mean attending the SOTU address (to which they were not invited) and by anti-science, they mean “not agreeing with us and other consensus-driven science identity advocates”.
Yet another small group of radical advocates acting as if they represent their entire implied membership.
I disagree!
Yours truly,
501 Triggered Scientists
Perfect.
Yep, it’s the “all or nothing” intransigence of identity politics, in which there is no middle ground. You either follow lockstep with their totalitarian demands/expectations, or you’re the devil.
“What do they object to? That Nye is Male, and White, and Famous.”
They object to Male and White. The Loony Left is now objecting to Patrick Kennedy III giving the response to Trump’s State of the Union speech because he is male and white, and in this case, rich.
Nancy Pelosi is afraid Trump is trying to make American White Again, with his immigration policy, she said the other day. I guess Nancy doesn’t know that America is already white, white’s being about 65 percent of the population, the last time I checked (although I haven’t checked since Obama opened the gates).
The radical Left would be delighted if all the whites, male and female, just disappeared from the face of the Earth. They think that would be Utopia because they consider whites to be the root of all evil in the modern world. Their delusions are strong.
Hank Johnson or Maxine Watters would have been much better respondents, but they might have tipped over the fourth time they said “impeach”.
Would these ‘500 women scientists’ be real, physical science researchers or simply ‘political scientists’? Enquiring minds would like to know.
There’s actually only two of them, operating out or a caravan parked at a crossroad. They copyrighted the 5 zillion angry Phlegminist scientist thing and registered as a “doing business as”.
Sound more plausible, as getting 500 real scientists to agree on anything would take a lot longer than 48 hours.
I would guess this group includes some ‘scientists’ like this:
“Imagining body size over time: Adolescents’ relational perspectives on body weight and place
Jennifer Dean [PhD!!!]
ABSTRACT
The author contextualizes the social construction of body weight among 31 adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods in Southern Ontario, Canada. Theoretically informed by critical “obesity” discourse and the temporal turn in youth geographies, this article explores the ways in which participants defined acceptance and risk of fatness, the fluidity of their own body weight, and the connection between body size and place. These constructions gathered through in-depth and go-along interviews are interpreted through the lens of relational geographies that account for multiple spatial-temporal experiences of place. Temporality plays a significant role in three thematic areas emerging from the data: pausing the present, recursive fatness over time, futurity of body weight in place. The author concludes with a discussion of bringing temporality to the forefront of youth fatness and childhood “obesity” discourse to shift the narrative away from risk. In addition, the author emphasizes the power of story and imagination in shifting the cultural understandings of body size among adolescents. Finally, the author responds to a broader call to action that advocates for a more relational approach to the study of “obesogenic” environments and place. Temporality in general and futurity in particular are important areas of future investigation for the study of young fat bodies in/out of place.”
http://tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21604851.2017.1372994?journalCode=ufts20
For more laughs – and weeping at how tax dollars are spent – check out this site (where I found this one):
https://twitter.com/realpeerreview
Oops. Was just trying to post the link to that site and all this popped up with it. In any case, gives you a good idea on what’s there.
I’m guessing China, with its foolish focus on producing engineers and the like, is way behind on this kind of vital research.
Now that is a sample of world class gobbledegook. Perhaps this is an area where more Trump inspired funding cuts might be useful.