Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / The Importance of Science Education with Bill Nye

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The Importance of Science Education with Bill Nye · Get Real with Jim Weiss

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Bill Ny is a kind of guy you can relate to,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: because I think he is a lot like me in
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: that sense. What you see is what you get. But
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: listening to his origin story, I don't think he's been
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that different at any point in his life. And it
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: was fun just hearing about how he met his wife.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that happened that way, and then how
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: formidable she is and what she's up to. And I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: just think the fun part of doing the podcast is
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you kind of just get to know people a little bit.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And this medium, which is blown up over the last
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: few years, has opened up an opportunity for more regular
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: people to talk to other extraordinary people and vice versa.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of cool, right, and that
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  Speaker 1: he was kind of giving me a heart, Like I'm
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: an investigative reporter and advertising guy. You know, it's fun
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: having that banter with him. But look, at the end
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of the day, this whole piece with him emphasized that
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  Speaker 1: science has to be critically important to the future of
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: our country, and I think that's worth fighting for. And
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I do think despite what people say about the administration,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I do believe there's plenty of people within the administration
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: that do believe that too, and we can get there,
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  Speaker 1: and they understand deep down that being number one in
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  Speaker 1: science can lead to a great future for all of us.
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  Speaker 2: And I really appreciate when you asked him, like, what's
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  Speaker 2: the message to younger generations, and he said, vote. That's
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  Speaker 2: the power that we have with science in mind. And
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  Speaker 2: that's something really important for gen Z that's voting now,
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  Speaker 2: and for millennials to remember, as we're shaping the next
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: iteration of the US.
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  Speaker 1: Please tune into this one. This is like mission critical
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  Speaker 1: and fun and important. He was just how I thought
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: he would be, and you know, pulling stuff out of
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: drawers and out of you know, his briefcase, all of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it showing us as metal freedom.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: And we saw his Walk of Fame star.
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  Speaker 3: He's a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: He's a big deal. I love the tie matching the
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  Speaker 1: blue Earth behind you too. It looks good.
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  Speaker 3: So Al Gore gave me that. I'm not just kidding.
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  Speaker 1: You gave you that photo in the back.
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  Speaker 3: If you look closely, this is from a long time ago.
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  Speaker 3: You look at it for a few seconds and your
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: eye goes right to what was Hurricane Andrew.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow, So nineteen mties cultural icon you're the guy
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  Speaker 1: who made our kids love science. I'd like to get
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  Speaker 1: to know the Bill nine behind the bow tie. We
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: did get a little time in camp, but not enough though.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: I've heard that science guy. Is you not a character? Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: That kind of what you see is what you get.
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  Speaker 3: That's sort of a fee impressing bug.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you think that authenticity is white in the
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  Speaker 1: show and you've crushed it so much over the years.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, maybe, yes, I will claim. Let me start with this,
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  Speaker 3: television is intimate. That is to say, when someone's on
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: the television and hear she is in your living room,
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  Speaker 3: you yell at him, you call out to him or her,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: and he just keeps going. So this is why I've
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: said for many years, you don't hate anyone more than
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: you hate someone on television or love right now, Yes, well,
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  Speaker 3: by analogy, if the guy or a gal on television
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: is likable, you like him. Be that as it may.
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  Speaker 3: I was certainly a key to the show. I was
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  Speaker 3: a head writer. I was the main guy in what
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I call the OCD, the on camera department. But we
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: had a terrific crew. People were very creative. Jim and Aaron,
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: my fellow creators, and producers just had a knack for
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: hiring the right people, and everybody who worked on the
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: show had a sense of humor. It's very important. This
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: combination of people just really we pulled off something pretty good.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't do it without the team. So I
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  Speaker 1: like a little origin story. You were raised in DC,
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  Speaker 1: right by a mom who was a World War two
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: code break in.
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  Speaker 3: The city limits of Washington, DC.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, which is more unusual. Maybe she was a World
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  Speaker 1: War two code breaker, that's true, right, Yeah, she.
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  Speaker 3: Never talked about it, no kidding. I mean, my dad
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  Speaker 3: was also a veteran. He was captured from Wake Island
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  Speaker 3: on Christmas Eve nineteen forty one, Wake Islands in the
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  Speaker 3: middle of Pacific Ocean, nowhere.
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  Speaker 1: And how long did he was? He a pow for
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  Speaker 1: a long time.
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  Speaker 3: Forty four months, longer than anyone else from the US.
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  Speaker 3: So whenever I think I have a problem, is just
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: get over it.
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  Speaker 1: So their tenacity influenced you.
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  Speaker 3: I guess, so, yes, yes, my dad often said you
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  Speaker 3: have to have initiative, but you've got to have f initiative.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. I like that initiative. I'm going to steal
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: that one too. At Cornell. You took astronomy with Carl Sagan. Right, yeah,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: let's hear about your connection and how you carry on
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: his legacy as CEO of the Planetary Society.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: He got to meet me, as I joke, I met
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: him when he was a professor of astronomy in the
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: spring of nineteen seventy seven. It's significant in that summer
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: was when the two Voyager spacecraft were launched, and I
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: claim and I had a tiny bit of influence on
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: those spacecraft by recommending loudly in class that the rock
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  Speaker 3: and roll song you want to put on the Voyager
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: audio recordings is not rolled over Beethoven, but Johnny be
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: good by Chuck Berry, and that's the song that got
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: on the record. All right. That aside, I went to
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: my tenth reunion. Yeah I look back kind of going.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: It was just I happened to be there. Also, I
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: remain a huge fan of Chuck Berry. And you can
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: get into fist fights in the history of rock and
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: roll bar but I will credit Chuck Berry with being
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: the guy that made black rhythm and blues into rock
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: and roll, or at least popularized it to the point
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  Speaker 3: where everybody embraced it. I went to my tenth reunion
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  Speaker 3: and Carl Sagan agreed to meet with me, and I
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  Speaker 3: told him I had this idea for a kids show
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: and he said, focus on pure science. He said, don't
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: do your engineering stuff. You're always focus on pure science.
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  Speaker 3: Kids resonate. That was a verb, unforgettable. Kids resonate to
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  Speaker 3: pure science.
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  Speaker 1: That's what he said, and that proved to be true.
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  Speaker 3: I embraced it for sure.
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  Speaker 1: So after Cornell, you want a Steve Martin lookalike contest?
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  Speaker 1: Have you met him?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, he got to meet me, I said, joke, he
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: got to meet me and he was very gracious. He
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: was just lovely.
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  Speaker 1: That inspired you to do stand up comedy? That contest went,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: or were you? How'd you get into comedy? Yeah?
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: So my claim for you to evaluate as the hard
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: hitting investigative journalist to manage as a world class advertising firm.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: After those first two albums, let's get small and wild
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: and crazy guy. In my opinion, every major city in
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: the maybe not even major city, every city in the
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: US and Canada suddenly had a stand up comedy club
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: or two. Before that that wasn't really in my recollection.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: There wasn't really a stand up comedy venue there would
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: be they.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Were basements, right. I felt like they were always like
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: in a basement.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: The stereotype is the brick wall in the basement, yeah,
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: which lends itself to the underground or disruptive. But Steve
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Martin's comedy was much more approachable or less polarizing or
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: controversial than Lenny Bruce's. So they had Warner Brothers Records
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: sponsored this lookalike contest, and I won in Seattle because
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: a group of friends said you ought to enter this,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: and they were new friends people that I met. I
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: got a job in Seattle at Boeing, and I moved there.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: What did you do there? What did you do with Boeing?
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: Engineer worked on flight controls so called alerons, rudder horizontal stabilizer,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit of nosewheel steering. But it's hydraulics. And
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I just tell everybody hydraulic systems are magical. If you
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: want to move a house six inches in a twentieth
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: of a second, a seven forty seven rudder actuator is
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: what you need. Those things are so powerful and they
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: deliver so much energy so quickly, so much force so quickly.
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  Speaker 3: It's really something. So I did that for a few years,
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  Speaker 3: and then my boss said to me, want you to
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: come work on this new airplane, which at that time
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: was going to be the seven six seven. I said
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: to him, offendedly, you know when's that going to fly? He's, oh,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: you know, fifteen years. It'll fly. You'll be working on
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: it for fifteen years, and when you're a young guy,
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: it's like a long time. So I left Boeing and
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: went to a shipyard that made oil slick skimming boats
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: and then this gizmo for separating oil and water in
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the oil field, and that was, respectfully, just too low tech.
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  Speaker 3: I just wasn't what I wanted to be doing. So
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: I got another job in aerospace at a company called
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Sunsrand Data Control, and I still have very close friends
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I worked with there. But I managed to quit my
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  Speaker 3: job October third, nineteen eighty six, roughly and pursued comedy
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: and worked part time as an engineer for several years
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: before I could manage to convince people to make the
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: science guy show.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: How'd that come about? How did you do that?
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  Speaker 3: Well? A man and a woman who are now husband
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: and wife were working on a show called Seattle Today.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: And you don't have to know anything about the show
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Seattle Today to pretty much know what you were getting there,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: and they wanted to do something else. They wanted to
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: make environmental videos, whatever that would be. And so the
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Washington State Department of Ecology. So Washington State is so hip,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: so groovy, it has a department of ecology, back when
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: the word ecology was almost controversial. Is a new coinage.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: So we did a thing called Fabulous Wetlands, which is
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: still on the Internet, and it's became a template for
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: the Science Guy Show. And that was in nineteen eighty eight,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: and it took us another four years to get funding
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: for a pilot, and we did and then we started
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: making the show. We came up with this at a
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: time when children's television was controversial. In that children's television
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: on Saturday mornings, What have You became largely an ad
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: for toys, and I get it. When you're a kid, man,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: if you have a toy that looks like the action hero,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: that's cool, that's fun. So the Children's Television Act was
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: created at this time. As Tipper Gore was spearheading this.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: We had this idea, this product, this presentation ready at
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: this time in history when people were willing to fund it.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: So we got funding from the Department of Energy and
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: from the National Science Foundation, and.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Here we go. Yea, I have a question about the
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  Speaker 1: bow tie. How did that happen?
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  Speaker 3: So largely it was because I had a crush on
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  Speaker 3: a girl in high school, and you wouldn't think the
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  Speaker 3: bow tie would be the thing understandable. We had a tradition,
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  Speaker 3: I guess we still have attradition in my high school
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  Speaker 3: where the boys are the waiters at what's called the
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: girls Athletic banquet. This is where the girls received their
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: awards for field hockey, across gymnastics, whatever the heck it is.
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  Speaker 3: And I thought, for example, if I were to bring
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: this girl a dessert, she might talk to me. I mean,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: I didn't see much of a downside. So I said
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  Speaker 3: to my colleagues, if we're gonna be waiters, let's dress
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  Speaker 3: like waiters. And my father, who is very good with knots,
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: he's quite the boy scout, showed me how to tie
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  Speaker 3: a bow tie. I tied everybody's bow ties and we
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: served the ladies the girls, and I went, okay, she
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: talked to me a bit, but it didn't really go anywhere.
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  Speaker 3: But I noticed that the reason waiters wear bow ties
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: is ergonomic or practical or whatever. When you lean over
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: a string, tie will fall into the tray, it will
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: slip into the soup in the laboratory, it will flop
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: into your flask. Then I found that wearing a bow
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  Speaker 3: tie sets you apart from other for example, stand up
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: comedians or want to be stand up comics. And so
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the bow tie just became a thing. And then when
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: I'm doing the Science Guy show, it really is practical.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't fall well into stuff, it stays put on.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Camera and so on, and now iconic.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: So now I can't stop. Yeah, I'm not turning back.
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  Speaker 1: Can't. So how did you meet your wife? Was it
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: around that time in Seattle, like working at Boeing and
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: all that, or oh.
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  Speaker 3: No, no, this is to me is a good story.
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  Speaker 3: My wife had been a reporter at the Washington Post.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Oh she started doing what they all do, apparently, I
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: say they all, many of them seem to do. People
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I've met over the years. They start writing books. She
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: wrote the first book about Michelle Obama. Several books have
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: been written since, but she wrote the first one. She
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: wrote this book about all the trouble people go to
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: to have kids called everything conceivable. She wrote a book
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: The Richer Sex, about how girls and women are taking
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: over the world, getting more advanced degrees, college degrees, making
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: more money than the men they marry, and on and on.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: And then she wrote a book called Code Girls about
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: the women recruited in the US to break enemy codes,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Nazi and Japanese military codes. That was a movie, right,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: It's a movie called The Imitation Game, which is based
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: on the famous guy Alan Turing, who did the very
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: right work on the logic of computer systems, and he
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: came up with the scheme to make a machine that
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: would imitate the output of the German Enigma code machine.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: And that's a movie based on that. But it is
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: important to note that the British had a few hundred
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: code breaking women, the US had ten thousand. So my
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: future wife's editor sent me a dvance copy of the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: paperback edition of Code Girls. You thought you might be
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: interested in this because it mentions your mother blah blah blah.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Get to page two eighty four and she mentions my mom.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: So I wrote Liza what I'll call a charming email.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: She answered it, and now we're married to each other.
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: That's and so I said the other day there was
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: an interesting email, and last I said, I don't know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: it wasn't very interesting. She's very dry.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: My wife is very funny, see as I met her,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: but terrific and now I think we have to have
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: her on the podcast.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: Well I can't say enough good things. I would have
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: her walk in here, but she's in Manila, in the
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: Philippines researching her next book. So there were one hundred
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: or so US nurses in Manila and environs taking care
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: of US servicemen and sailors and they were all taken
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: prisoner prisoners of war World War two, and none of
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: them died and they survived. It doesn't that the US
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: women and a bunch of Filipina gals.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Well I want to hear about that. My dad was
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: stationed there. That's where he was in World War two.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: In World War two. Yeah, they sent guys over to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: settle it. So at the end you mean, or at
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the end it was at the end, yeah, yeah.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Because she's gone over there seeing the Baton death March.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And all that, oh man, all that heavy stuff. Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So look, I met you guys in can at the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Laughing at Doom panel for a series about Friedrich zapasia. Right,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: are we going further on that?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: You guys tell me. Do you know who Mary Hogan is? Yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: she's my cousin when my cousin once removed speaking for
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: you genealogical people out there, and so she is real
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: into this. And there may be a drug that would
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: address all of these forms of ataxia. And I just
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: got a text about it yesterday, so I don't know
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: the details, but that would be great because this condition
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: is just a drag.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: That's great And thanks for building awareness with us. I
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: mean it's.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Maybe stopping the progression, which would be fabulous.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: And it was in your family still is yeah, still
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: is right.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Other who is older really has symptoms coming on. My sister,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: you know, is pretty much in a wheelchair, the oldest
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: of the three of us. She can walk with assistance
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: because it's not a strength issue. It's balance, coordination, extremities.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: This whole thing.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: What struck me with how you were using humor to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: get us to talk about this difficult disease that was
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: maybe very scary. That's something you did in the shows, right,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, to make tough things understandable and accessible to kids.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: In the Science show yeah, and some of the best bits,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: frankly were not that. I mean, the show's funny most
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: of the time, but there were a couple of serious
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: bits about infectious diseases and plagues and so on. And
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: I'm very proud of those bits because they stand out
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: on account of the contrast they're juxtaposed with the humor.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: So you're now a lack of Fame star. I watched
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: your there, I got that leaning.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: I haven't hung it up yet. It's leaning over there.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's see it. Can you carry it? You go? Oh? Nice? Yeah?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And Jalen Brown gave you that.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Well the how he would walk of Fame organizations to me.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they gave it to you, but didn't he Jalen.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Brown stowed up. Jalen Brown came to the event.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, how'd you meet him? Like, are you a
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: big basketball fan?
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I'm an okay basketball fan. Go to a basketball game.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: It is amazing. I mean, we've all, I believe many
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: of us who are able bodied anyway have tried to
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: play basketball, but those guys are a whole other.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Jalen Brown was on Jimmy Kimmel the talk show. He said,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: I would like someday to meet Bill Nye because he
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: apparently was he is a fan of the show this
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: and that, so UH contacted him. We met in that
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: the Tunnel I guess it's called in the Wizard's Game
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: and in Washington, DC, and we corresponded a little bit,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: and then I said, Man, I'm getting a Walk of Fame.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Would you be willing to come? He paid his own way,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: flew across the country with his publicist and his mom,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and they came to the Walk of Fame and he
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: said a few words and it was just charming. He
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: was a hit. I mean, he stole the show.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: That's a great Wow, that's incredible. So yeah, that's making
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: science accessible through sports and humor, and it's so important
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: based on that, is there anyone taking the mantle and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: teaching the next generation about science.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: The way you have Internet is lousy with science educators.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: The thing that still sets the Science Guys show apart,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: I think, and this for you hard hitting investigative reporters,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: TV critics and whoever you might be, is we focused
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: on elementary science, like actual elementary science, and many many
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: online presenters do what I would call high school or
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: even college level science. Presentations which are important, but that
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: it hasn't nudged the Science Guy show to the side yet,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: but I imagine that'll haven't eventually. The reason we did
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: the show about elementary science was we had very convincing
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: research that ten years old is as old as you
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: can be to get the so called lifelong passion for science.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: So we focused the show on those people. People ten
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: years old turns out fourth grade or what have you
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: was a pretty good level for everybody. That's enabled the
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: show to stand so far, stand the test of time.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: But the one thing you can count on in life
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: is that things are going to change, So stay tuned.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Are good. We can't wait to hear more. You're out
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: there making sure the US stays in the lead globally.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: The US is falling behind in every way scientifically. This
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: idea that you can do your own research online and
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: be every bit as expert as somebody who studied it
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: for a decade, I don't think is true, a false premise,
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: what have you. And the current administration is priding itself
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: on picking contrarians to lead organizations like the Environmental Protection Agency,
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: the Department of Energy, Health and Human Services. This idea
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: that disruption. Be a disruptor is inherently good. Move fast
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: and break things is wrong in my opinion for most things. Yes,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: for creating Facebook, it was good. That was good or
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: pretty good. He got sued for millions and millions of dollars,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: but it was pretty good. But that's not true of
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: drug testing and certainly not true of infectious diseases. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: this anti science movement is not good for infectious disease control,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: public health. And China National Space some might spend a
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: lot of time in the space industry. China National Space
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: Administration will outcompete NASA and probably is a European space agency.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: There'll be another one or probably two so called Sputnik
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: moments when China National Space lends people on the Moon,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: and then when China National Space brings geologic samples back
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: from the planet Mars, and around twenty thirty three, there'll
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: be a wake up call and we'll see how the
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: US responds.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: At that time, you're on the hill talking to them
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: about this, I think.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes, you'd think if I show up and make
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: the case, everything would.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Just change rights. Yeah, weird.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: Now I meet people who don't recognize my genius and
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: so on, that's a joke, everybody, that's irony, ha ha.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: So it is deeply concerning. The anti science movement here
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: in the US is really not good. And you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I like to everybody. The US Constitution, which is as
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I like to joke, is available in paperback, Article one,
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Section eight, Clause eight Commress is to promote the progress
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: of science and useful arts. Science. The word science is
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: in the Constitution seventeen eighty seven. This denial of it
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: or antiscience is really not in anyone's best interest. And
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: so right now, speaking of everything going to heck. This
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: embrace of the fossil fuel industry, which has worked so
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: hard to deny the cause and effect of fossil fuel
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: use and climate change and carbon dioxide, and so it's
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: really bad. It's catching up with us. And so the
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: administration has hired a bunch of people who just don't
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: accept the fact of climate change or want to put
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: it off. And it's really when in public opinion, it's
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: way down compared to all the other extraordinary things that
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: this administration is doing.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Got it all, right, Well, you're going to stay out
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: there and you're going to help educate, sure I am.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Meanwhile, we have drugs to address a taxi of people.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Come on, this is cool, which you know, we know
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: we can do it. So you received the Presidential Medal
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of Freedom, right, Yeah, that was cool. Is that somewhere
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: in the office. I don't know if that's there. Well,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: is it in a drawer?
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: The big one is on a bookcase in another city.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: But.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: There are. They give you small ones, which I wear
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: from time to time. Oh cool, So here's here's the miniature,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: oh wow, which you wear when at a black tie event,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: which I've done a couple of times.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And then you're allowed to wear the bar, which is
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: akin to military metal bars, you know, the high ranking
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: military people have on their left breast. I wear this
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: one with a suit, and then once in a while
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: I wear this really tiny one with a sport coat.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's cool too.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: And then the big one is in a safe place
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: in another city.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: But got it.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: It just means the world to me, everybody. My parents,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: as we said, my parents are both the veterans. I
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: consider myself a patriot if you look at the rules
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: of the Road. The one sheet I gave to everybody
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: who came to work on the Science Guy Show, the
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: top line is to change the world. I really wanted
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: the US to lead the world, and that's why I
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: made the show. But it's a difficult time right now.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you, man.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: You're going to fight through it. Like all of us,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: we're here to tell the story. I always ask two
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: questions before we wrap it. I like to know what
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: your dream vacation is. Do you go on vacation much? Oh?
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so dream vacation here, I'm printing something for a
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: dramatic effect. I'll to say. I've had people ask me
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: if I could go anywhere in the cosmos, where would
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: I want to go? And I like to say Hawaii.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: Why it's good.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: It's good. Which do you like the Big Island?
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Or well, Big Island's cool for the volcanoes, right, honeymoon
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: we went to Kawai, which was really cool. My wife
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: is quite the hiker man, a keen tramper as they
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: say in New Zealand. Anyway, I printed a copy of
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: the Rules of the Road, the Wow document, and so
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: the top line is objective changed the world. And then
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: it says to produce a TV show that gets kids
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: and adults excited about science so that the United States
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: will again be the world leader in technology, innovation and
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: sound management of the environment. This was in nineteen nine
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: two and then nineteen ninety three, So that's not a
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: new idea of people. And I consider myself a patriot.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: So we get to the two questions, where do I
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: want to go on vacation?
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Well, there is one more. You're done to the moon,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the desert island. You're going to be on your own.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: What's the album you're going to take? Oh?
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: I think d Chaplin's first album.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: You know, the music you listen to when you come
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: of age has a deep effect on you. I enjoy that.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: I listened to Studio fifty four, which is disco music
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: for a little bit. I listened to the Blues Channel
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: all the time.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: What about the grateful Dead Channel?
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: It's okay, I'll do it for a while. I was
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: never a deadhead. I certainly spent a lot of time
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: with deadheads. I played ultimate frisbee.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Seriously, anything you want to leave with us? What do
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: we need to do? What do we How can we
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: help Bill Nye?
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Well, send money to the Bill Nye. Science found it.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: But uh, you guys, let's vote. So I tell everybody
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: science into account. When you vote This is how we're
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: going to change the world and everybody. If we could
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: teach one thing to every student, to every adult, to
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: everybody in the world, if we could convey one thing,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: it would be what's nowadays called critical thinking. Where you
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: get in the habit where you routinely evaluate evidence. Where
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: somebody tells you something, you are in the habit of
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: trying to side whether or not it's true. When someone
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: says they've seen an alien spacecraft that came down and
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: probed your nose, just keep in mind there may be
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: another reason you woke up with a nosebleed, a less
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: complicated reason. When someone says the Earth is round, that
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: is also an extraordinary claim. You have to go to
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: a little bit of trouble to prove it, but it
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: turns out the world is round. So critical thinking, that's
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: what we need. Back to you.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I think you need your own showback.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: All right, it's hardly any work at all. We'll just
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: crank that out. Yeah, no problem, and get funding these
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: days is send an email and the money just shows up.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can relate. Thank you very much.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Thank you guys, See you soon.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Hey everyone, thanks for joining me on the Get Real podcast.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know. I hope you feel a little healthier hanging
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: out with me. You know it's going to be a
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. Passing this along to others. Please subscribe below,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Please share. I'm excited not just to talk about healthcare,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: but a lot of other fun topics. It's about making healthy.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Talk about healthcare is not a lecture. This is supposed
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: to be fun. And look forward to spending more time
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: with you in the future.