An Awfully Overdue Autopsy of Bill Nye Saves the World

I'm not dead.
0:00 Fist-bump montage
1:27 Intro
5:58 Part 1 - The Jimmy Fallon of Science
10:37 Part 2 - F**k it, do it live
18:29 Part 3 - The Eyes of Nye
27:12 Part 4 - Science is political (and other fun facts)
33:55 Part 5 - Bagels and Bottoms
42:27 Wrapping up
/ bobbybroccole
Bibliography:
www.macleans.ca/culture/movies...
www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...
www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/0...
www.forbes.com/sites/stevensa...
www.theguardian.com/environme...
silenceisconsent.net/bill-nye...
dailycaller.com/2017/05/16/red...
www.vox.com/2015/5/19/8621539...
www.seattletimes.com/entertai...
www.indiewire.com/2017/04/bill...
www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lo...
www.seattlepi.com/ae/tv/articl...
www.bodyofevidence.ca/blog/bil... (not used in the video but this article has a lot of good criticisms of the show that lined up with my thoughts)
Videography:
The Three Stooges work the bar
The Experiment that made Einstein a superstar
PET Scan animation
What Are Healing Crystals
Why do people still think the Earth is flat? - BBC News
BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY Official Theatrical Trailer
Who created God? | Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox
Learning about how the universe was born: The story of the Horn Antenna
Origins of the Universe 101 | National Geographic
Bill Nye Saves the World | Season 2 Announcement | Netflix
NBC’s Earliest Report on AIDS 1982
AIDS and the Reagan Administration
First Moon Landing 1969
What is NOT Random?
1985 clips on the rise of AIDS and how Ronald Reagan ignored the LGBT community
Galileo on Trial for Heresy
Archive footage of Hiroshima bombing
Nagasaki and Hiroshima (1945)
4th Dimension - Tesseract, 4th Dimension Made Easy - Carl Sagan
White Rabbit Project | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix
Mythbusters - Epic Fails | Top 25 Moments
NOVA scienceNOW : 34 - Emergence
What is Space Time? | StarTalk
The Physics of Lightsabers | StarTalk
How It’s Made Ice Cream
Incredible Teamwork from Little Clownfish | Blue Planet II
TAM 2014 - Bill Nye - Keynote Talk
Measured Response: Bill Nye VS Pseudoscience (Part One)
Iguana vs Snakes | Planet Earth II
One Final Tribute | Daily Planet
CMT’s Redneck Island - Sneak Peek 1

[@sobertillnoon]

I half expected this to be a 40 minute long supercut of the fist bumps with a paetron shout-out at the end.

[@SillySpaceMonkey]

I honestly would have gone from enjoying to disappointment to disbelief and back around to entertained by the end, I think.

[@Tayl0r_]

I thought or expected that my youtube app has to be glitching and the first minute or so of this video was just a minute-ish of awkward fist bumps and that’s it. That’s the video.

[@kevincronk7981]

Wow it's weird to see a 40 minute bobbybrocoli video and have it start with apologizing for being long

[@julianfields7320]

The double fist numbs should’ve counted as 2

[@WikipediaLover94]

This starting with "my longest video yet" when I have started with the multi hour epics is so quaint

[@caelank5544]

Just found the channel, it’s brilliant, hope it blows up. Minor thing for the whole political side of science, Galileo was put under house arrest mainly due to internal court pressure on Pope urban (claiming he was too lenient on heretics) who had previously given him explicit permission to publish on heliocentric and copernican models as long as he kept balanced and also put forward the mainstream argument of the time. Galileo ends up writing a character called Simplicio who puts forward pope urbans exact phrasing of the mainstream thought. Its considered that Aristotelians and Jesuits who disagreed with previous work of Galileo about the basis of matter convinced the pope that this was an intentional caricature of the pope (although it’s now widely regarded that it wasn’t deliberate, or supposed to be antagonistic). While the whole religion squashing science has been beaten to death time and again. It’s worthwhile to note that Galileo’s observations didn’t actually support the Copernican heliocentric model, his model would have had a stationary earth, with the rest of the system being heliocentric, which closely resembles Tycho Brahe’s (known as “the first competent mind in astronomy to seek empirical facts”) hybrid model. With no calculus or Newtonian mechanics heliocentric models were unprovable at the time. Also for religion and science the golden age of Islam was obviously religion helping science, same with the renaissance Greek and Latin was translated by Christian monks

Are you saying that it was Galileo’s view that the sun orbited the Earth and then all of the planets orbit the sun like satellites or something different, I got confused

[@sarahwatts7152]

@ I think it might just be inherently confusing

[@sarahwatts7152]

This is so interesting, thanks for going to the trouble!

[@Aucoin-qt7lg]

Great comment. Learned something

[@TheYoutubeUser69]

Tycho "half a nose" Brahe

[@BobbyBroccoli]

Remind me never to make anything this long again. Sorry for the reupload, had to fix some content claims.

[@ringtail99]

how is session 3

[@richc.3100]

I like the long form story telling. Please post more long ones.

[@Grantshark159]

I found you through your Jan series and I just wanted to say I seriously love your long form content. You’re super funny, the videos are entertaining as hell, and I would love to see more like this in the future! Obviously you put a ton of work into these videos so I can completely understand if it’s not your thing and you go a different way with your channel. Just wanted to let you know how much I really enjoy your content though it’s inspired me to look into making my own stuff! Thank you I hope you keep up the great work!

[@Grantshark159]

Basically just said the same thing Rich said but I’m way more words hahaha sorry for the long comment lol

[@EricJDrake]

I love longer ones. I listen to this and many other channels during my 12 hr shifts so 40+ minutes goes a long way.

[@Arualiaa]

Ngl, that strawberry DNA segment is EXACTLY what actual DNA labwork looks like in real life. It's a whole lot of nothing happening, setting up equipment and going through the motions, all the while you can't see anything happening. It's not even as visual as the strawberries: you get a clear sample, mix it with clear reactives, let it dry into a clear tube, then mix with more liquids that look exactly like water. By the end, you have what you started with: a tube that looks like it has nothing in it. You just have to trust the process and hope you did everything right so you'll get results later, because you just spent an hour of your time doing the real life, grown up equivalent of playing pretend with a toy kitchen set, and a LOT can be riding on you not fucking up this invisible tea party mimicry - ie, forensic DNA testing, diagnosing COVID or AIDS, etc. It's visually boring as all hell, and if you don't understand the science behind it you'd be tempted to think it's just someone fluffing about with random tubes and funny-looking pipettes filled with water, but it's honestly nervewracking as a process. So Bill showing how an intense laborious process ends up so anticlimactically, and being like "yeah this is DNA, and it looks like absolutely nothing" could have been a really interesting angle if he was talking about how abstract fields of science actually work, how it's tough, and even kind of faith-based in the sense that you need to have faith in your own abilities because you don't know what's going on visually, and the theory behind what you're doing needs to be 100% right for your procedure to produce any tangible results. It could have been a really poignant moment showing how science isn't always rockets and bubbling concoctions, sometimes it can be watching a guy, for ten gruelling minutes, mixing a LITERAL drop of clear liquid into two drops of clear liquid, shoving that comically tiny tube into a machine that will mix it further, then rinse and repeat until he lets THE DROP DRY IN THE TUBE, shows us a close-up of that completely dry and empty tube, and tells us that this thing is the reason why people are sent to jail, why millions of people can live to see another day, why we can catch diseases in time, why we can tell why your dad is your biological dad. All of it in an empty tube that isn't actually empty.

[@tomcads1604]

And don't forget there's nothing to actually see under a microscope that would make this more interesting

[@shashwatsharma2596]

You painted an amazing mental picture

[@EMETRL]

you're exactly right, and doing DNA extraction/cloning in my biochem lab courses in college was incredibly nervewracking because there was basically no way to tell if you had any success until halfway through the course when you actually go to see if the implanted DNA showed up in the bacteria you grew. The professor recalled that generally speaking, the hope was that one out of every dozen or so students would get a relatively successful experiment and that by design, the point of the class was just to learn about the process and not necessarily to be successful. Sure enough, out of the 20 lab groups in my class, only 3 showed evidence of successful DNA transfer, and one of those three were kinda shitty (that was mine! yay, i guess?). This was considered an above average outcome. Now, in the real world, it's not a bunch of tired undergraduate students splicing open bacterial nuclei for the first time in their lives. It's a bunch of tired *graduate* students who have already done it a few times and have been trained at least a little bit. So... yeah.

[@handleless986]

my friend is currently getting her masters and in the lab she works at she almost always tells me how frustrating the work can be spending hours doing something and realizing she effed up somewhere in there and have to do it all over again 😅

[@mikesanders8621]

This was a fascinating read. You should be writing for Bill Nye.

[@RamHoot]

holy crap... that anti-vax mother at the end was like hitting him head on. Like, what she was saying practically sounded like a criticism of his show and not just of her experience with pediatricians. Holy macaroni. Also Kev yo have you thought about hitting up some education science topic style videos? You'd absolutely slay.

[@pstark4]

Imagine how they would have talked to her if she hadn’t changed her mind.

[@aryantaywade298]

bro this aged extremely well. HIs new videos are so damn good

[@freyjablue.]

​​@@aryantaywade298 hell yeah was just about to comment this

[@uploadJ]

Ya - like DEI and CRT?

[@bev9708]

"I've found from personal experience that a change in tone, not necessarily the structure of your argument, can be the thing that opens up someone's world view!" BobbyBroccoli, YES YES YES!!!!!!! I immediately rewound that and listened to it again to hear it WELL!!!!!

[@pwnzorsausage7766]

then proceeds to contradict that stance around 30:00 unfortunately.

[@timothylinfoot7156]

hey, me too!

[@alagosplode]

I can't help but disagree. Even after what happened, the mother is still blaming other people. It wasn't "My poor decision hurt my children," but "If only a pediatrician had told me." The issue is not that the mother learned nothing, it's that she learned only one thing. She may have changed her mind on vaccination, but her explanation on why she was wrong before tells me she will be wrong again, and won't listen to people who tell her to do better until she causes demonstrable harm.

[@trumanrudloff6776]

A note on Galileo. Galileo wasn't put under house-arrest for his views on heliocentrism necessarily. He was put under house-arrest for disobeying a Papal order set by the previous Pope whom he pissed off. Note that in the first round he wasn't stopped researching the idea. Just from publicly displaying the idea pretty much. In a bid to gain Papal Patronage (which he had been trying to do), he submitted his work thinking he was cool with the new Pope. But it turns out that Galileo pissed off that Pope and the hammer was brought down on him again (the Papal order wasn't removed and that's what got him). One of the most important things though in medieval history is that the Church/religion was at the center of science and is actually where the term "doctor" comes from. As well as why everyone is so obsessed with Latin. The only reason that the Church was at the center for so long is because the church had money. If you didn't have money/patronage, you weren't doing research. That's why you get a bunch of alchemists search for gold which are funded by royalty, why you have nut jobs sailing across the ocean (looking at you Chris), and people going around the entire European continent catalogue plants. The reason why you would get funded/patronage was almost 100% political. Royalty gave you money to expect results to impress and One-up kings of other nations. Otherwise if you were doing research, you came from money. In the first place, you needed money to get education to actually read and write and then gain a higher degree of learning.

[@COASTER1921]

I LOVED the White Rabbit Project. Just as much appeal as the original Mythbusters, maybe even a bit better paced. I'm incredibly disappointed they didn't do a season 2 of it.

[@stephanieparker1250]

Same 😢

[@rhaspberry7108]

Rip the legend Grant Imahara

[@stephanieparker1250]

@@rhaspberry7108 💜💜💜💜

[@Sugar3Glider]

It would be pretty neat if they did a butt load of experiments with Bill teaching the class/audience. So they could film each group and splice together the good stuff

[@ByzantineDarkwraith]

loved the video. technically polio hasn't been eradicated (small pox has been, the virus only exists as samples in like 3 labs), wild polio cases (a very small amount) have been reported in Asia as recently as 2021

[@krankarvolund7771]

Polio was going to be eradicated, but the WHO is delaying the date they hope it will be, because antivaxx movement is slowing vaccinations campaign or making people refuse the vaccine.

[@ktex4873]

The most common type of polio found today is the vaccine strain. Even Bill Gates himself will tell you that! Additionally, Polio would not have been a major issue had we not been practically swimming in and breathing in DDT at the time.

[@secretmurderer]

I loved this series. You touch on so many great things: how science works, questioning authority, science is political, how to get your message across to kids or adults, empathy is important, (among other things). 👏

[@UnoriginallyChrisLPs]

This is a fantastically put together video! Amazing job with this one! :)

[@chaklee435]

to misquote Extra Credit, if you agree it's common sense, if you disagree it's politics. Therefore politics is defined as "all the opinions I don't agree with".

[@Sonic_the_hedgedog]

That's a great quote. I wish I could save KZbin comment, so I can remember it later

[@tahvohck]

love how we go from a small "it's cute how you think science isn't political" here to the current stuff you're putting out of "here's several hours about just how political science is" (And that's a good thing!)

[@isaac6077]

Thats how progressives are. Its might be their worst trait

[@theweekendwarrior6355]

I randomly discovered your channel yesterday, and have already consumed 12+ hours of your content. Really love the long 2-3 hour videos instead of the multiple part ones but either way love your content. Super entertaining and informational.

[@AC-AC]

Funny seeing this comment from "1hr ago" on a 5 year old video - I also randomly found the channel (this morning) and ended up doing a 12 hour binge. Interesting content presented really well!

[@rankinbass1312]

Glad to know we're both sonic kids, Bobby

[@cliff_hange7284]

The way they treated people who disagree reminded me immediately of Felipe Castanhari's own science Netflix show. There's a janitor (kinda elitist ik) that doesn't really know a lot, and tries to debunk the scientists, but they only ever grab him by the hand and show him the truth, all while making it easy to digest and not being patronizing, acknowledging he doesn't understand science terms all that well, and guiding him through every doubt, which made the show very easy to go through, in my opinion, he represented some real questions people watching would've had (especially since the show is Brazilian and targeted at Brazilians)

[@robmckennie4203]

That sex junk song and the ice cream sketch really remind me of a particular genre of tumblr posts (like the "all or nothing" one) that might seem superficially interesting and clever, but when it comes to execution just end up being cringe

[@GoogleAccount-xb5ey]

hey this was awesome! i'm glad i stumbled upon your channel. i thoroughly enjoyed this in-depth, multi-part analysis. what really struck me was your touching on the topic of empathetic communication--it /is/ easy to get frustrated with the other side for their perceived ignorance. i think we do all need to remember more empathy when we go to argue about what we believe in. besides that, cool video, saved me the trouble of watching the show to ridicule it, lol. nice job.

[@thebestrelaxingvideosonthe8619]

Thank you. This video summarizes my feelings exactly for why this show failed. I love Bill Nye, and as you said it's not that his stances are wrong, it's the presentation. Educating people, and helping them learn shouldn't come from a negative space, it needs to come from an exciting, enthusiastic, and welcoming stance. Bill truly encapsulated that in his original kids show, topics were exciting, he would explain the reasoning behind why something is accurate, and would do it in a fun, interesting, and welcoming way. Bill Nye saves the world on the other hand is too focused on why people are wrong, and not why something is right.

[@RaeIsGaee]

@E F This is a nearly three year-old video and *Now* you decide to be transphobic?

[@RaeIsGaee]

@@tylerchambers6246 That line of reasoning is explicitly made, in most cases, to exclude trans women from being women and implies gatekeeping at best. If you don't want to be called transphobic, then don't be transphobic. And I'm not saying that you're being dishonest. I am saying that your reasoning, and therefore you yourself, are transphobic, and it's not my job to explain how that's wrong.

[@RaeIsGaee]

@@tylerchambers6246 Nice essay dude! Didn't ask though, so buzz off.

[@felixjohnson3874]

It doesnt help that he just was blatantly trying to push political messages instead of actual science. You dont animate icecream orgies or perform sex musicals "for the science".

[@bobdrooples]

55 seconds in and 29 fist-bumps, I would ditch from cringe if I hadn't watched the three part on plastic transistor dude.

[@danv8718]

LOL, exactly my thought

[@skimmoon]

i honestly love the tirade (using the term affectionately) in part 5 about leveraging empathy to correct disinformation in loved ones and complete strangers. a very important sentiment that social media and public shaming has kind of erased in this era.

[@CargodHera]

I just have to tell you that I really love your content. I've completely geeked out and stayed up all night before on your documentaries about the super collider and the people who have tried to fake cloning and elements!

[@JayMaverick]

Ironically Bill Nye became the Ken Ham of his own world in the end.

[@FOAB-Carlos]

Lmao true, Now he acts like one of those people that know everything in the universe.

[@RichoRosai]

I had that goddamn Bubble Bobble loop stuck in my head this morning for the first time in ages, and then I actually heard it in this video for the first time in literally 20 years probably. So ironically thanks to this video I totally believe in auras now. And astrology. And dragons too.

[@SuperGamer61499]

Wow. Just, wow. Amazing dude. :) While this video is long, what a way to end the Bill Nye trilogy. It was great dude. On a side note: While I am not the biggest fan of Hbomberguy, I liked that Bill Nye Pseudoscience video he made. And I can see why people wouldn't like this version tbh. Even if right, it is definitely best to go the respectful route generally. You win more people that way even if you don't convince them. :P

[@matthewjefferson9797]

That hollow knight needle drop hit me like a bundle of bricks

[@jamielucas7541]

recently discovered this channel. I am so glad you addressed how dismissive he was about nuclear energy in the first episode. He didn't let the guy speak more than 8 words.

[@emeryboehnke4259]

The strawberry DNA extraction is real, but also very boring.... So a pretty good summary of real jobs in biology lol

[@NutellaRLZ]

The use of Robot Waiting Room #4 from Portal 2 felt so perfect

[@neospouro6824]

hearing the cave story ost along with vvvvvv just makes me… it fits so well with the world of science and the exploration of it that covers the subject, how vvvvvv was about breaking the laws of physics to change the entire mechanic of a game and about the crew going into the great unknown, and cave story about the feats of beneficial technology unfortunately given to war and the distrust of technology even though Quote doesn’t even know where they’re from… ya Allah it’s beautiful, this video is clearly wonderful and I would love hearing musical themes like this in videos more. it fits so well

[@cleanerwhite9470]

I didn't know Bill Nye Saves the World was a show name. My dumbass thought the title was saying that Bill Nye has passed away and the act of performing autopsy on him somehow saved the world.

[@musstakrakish]

wtf?

[@riventhenorm7432]

He comes back after months with an absolute banger

[@notinspectorgadget]

There was more than one season of this?

[@SolarFlareAmerica]

"I might have a corn bomb in my stomach" MASSIVE missed potential for a good informative lesson on why you shouldn't each unpopped popcorn kernels. Too few know of this danger.

[@RobotronSage]

This sure aged well lmao

[@simonshawca]

I'm impressed you watched all the episodes. I couldn't make it through the first one.

[@griffenalexander5597]

lmao, Bill saying "I wasn't sure you'd be here" made me chuckle

[@christopherstolper5306]

My text notification is the sonic rings and I played the vide walked away...did w.e and the beginning goescrazy with it...lost my mind

[@TrickiVicBB71]

I only heard of his new shows through Popular Science magazines. The hatred for him is massive nowadays. But the nostalgia in me still likes him. He made me like science

[@matthintz9468]

The Eyes of Nye was a far, far better show. I wish PBS would have continued producing it. I feel like Bill Nye Saves the World is trying to take a kind of Penn and Teller route, with the mixture of scripted performance and impromptu interaction.

[@AJislostinthesauce]

I think this is by far the most valid criticism and analysis if bill Nye saves the world I've ever seen. Good job

[@ga35am]

Wow. I can't imagine the dimensions of the effort put on this video. Man, I'm in pain just trying to imagine. This video deserves 1.000.000 likes.

[@paranormal17]

I’m here from the future. The conclusion of the vaccine episode being the most important has aged extremely well.

[@sealy999]

I can’t quite put a finger on it, but the way u describe things are so logical I wish more ppl spoke like this

[@chalkchalkson5639]

This was amazing! It really helped me put some of my nebulous disdain for the show into perspective and pin it down! Ultra small correction 38:31 MRI doesn't usually use radioactive isotopes and the electromagnetic radiation involved are radio and AC frequencies, so wouldn't generally be considered "radiation" in the "radioactivity" sense since that is commonly used as a synonym for ionizing radiation. I guess you meant MRI with Gadolinium contrast agents? Also none of the procedures you listed use radiation to improve your general health like the crystal healers claim, there is also medical pseudoscience and grifters trying to sell radiation as having health benefits (radon caves and radioactive bracelets) so even linking those two concepts is something I'd be very careful about. Ionizing radiation is a difficult subject that the general public doesn't understand super well and where large open questions remain (like dose effect curves for small doses). The amount of accessible good information out there is matched by oversimplified takes and misinformation, so I'd suggest we should be careful about even making tenuous connects which might be used by grifters as evidence in their favour. No joke some grifters tell people that radiation therapy helps with cancer so getting some low dose irradiation regularly would help them not getting cancer or relieve their pain.

[@ByzantineDarkwraith]

I think he just meant electromagnetic radiation (which includes gamma rays, X-rays, and the radio waves that an MRI emits along with its magnetic field). He never said that an MRI was radioactive, he just said it used radiation for medical purposes, which is technically true. I get what you're saying though, it would definitely confuse and possibly misinform someone who doesn't know that "radiation" is technically a much more generic term than they probably think it is. An actual mistake he made is when he says that polio is eradicated... it's not eradicated worldwide. He might have confused it with small pox.

[@chalkchalkson5639]

@@ByzantineDarkwraith i mean Polio is erradicated in most countries at least. Though the recent findings in southern africa are pretty troubling... I guess the high power RF of MRI is kind of a concern? I know that tissue heating can be limiting acquisition times for some sequences. But imo radiation without clarifying RF, EM, particle etc is usually understood to mean ionizing radiation. That's probably a very confusing thing, but from my interactions with non-physics humans that seems to be how the word is understood. Funny considering we have radiators for winter and give each other radient diamonds as gifts...

[@Sarah-oj7bh]

"No joke some grifters tell people that radiation therapy helps with cancer so getting some low dose irradiation regularly would help them not getting cancer or relieve their pain." oh no I didn't know this, this is horrid

[@alaricbergeron4687]

It's called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imagery (NMRI) because it probes magnetic resonances of the precession of the nuclei of atoms. There is no "radioactivity" but the term nuclear still applies as it pertains to an effect on atomic nuclei. But what BobbyBroccoli is saying is that people call it MRI, not NMRI, because the word "nuclear" is scary even though there is no ionizing radiation of any kind involved.

[@ByzantineDarkwraith]

@@alaricbergeron4687 the original commenter is referring to the part of the video where BobbyBroccoli refers to MRIs as a form of using radiation for medical purposes. MRIs do in fact use use radiation in the form of radio waves (a form of electromagnetic radiation) which it emits along with its electromagnetic field. The original name NMRI has nothing to do with what the original commenter is talking about. If you click the timecode he included in the comment ( 38:31 ) you would see this.

[@OutbackBoy]

Awesome video. I would just like to respond to your take on science and politics. You said a number of things (paraphrasing): "science (in practice) is inherently political", "the abstract process of science is not political", "science is enmeshed in politics" etc. I understand that scientific enterprises and scientific problems are the subject of political concern, but your usage of just the word "science" for both "scientific endeavour" and "scientific fact / consensus" can lead to confusion. I am not sure that you will disagree with what I am about to say - I say it to clarify why I think this is an important distinction. First, the example of climate change. While scientific inquiry informs us of the scientific fact that climates are changing globally, it cannot inform us on what we do with that fact. Should we even care? If we care, how ought it be addressed? There can exist two politicians who both accept the scientific consensus about climate change and yet have different approaches to deal with it - eg. free market enterprise solutions on the right and global interventionist solutions on the left. Indeed, there exist many such politicians in each camp and in between. That's politics. In this sense, the climate science is apolitical. The acceptance of a scientific fact may become a point of political divide, but scientific facts themselves are just statements of best approximation of the world around us - they are not problems in need of solutions. It is the individual person's mind, with it's unique experiences, concerns and biases that map problems and solutions onto the world which we come to see better through scientific endeavour. The world in and of itself ("the science") is not political. Another example: the sexuality episode. In social science, the prevailing model for human sexuality has four aspects: sex, gender, gender expression and sexual preference ("attraction"). Given that this is the case, that fact doesn't actually tell us what to do about it. A libertarian type will advocate for the freedom of all people to 'do what they will' given their sexuality, and the traditionalist type will chide that the 'desirable social order' will be disrupted by such freedom. Who is right? That is not a scientific question, but a political one. Yes, scientific understanding can and must inform politics insofar that scientific misunderstandings may proliferate on one side of a particular issue (eg. climate change, sexuality), but scientific facts are amoral and apolitical. This is part of why Bill's sexuality episode was so panned. It is not merely the presentation of a model for human sexuality, but an endorsement of a particular stance on what to do about in light of that model (the "sexually libertarian" position). Case and point, the sexuality song - which, as you say, had nothing to do with the science and was basically a politically pandering piece of poo. TLDR; You cannot derive 'ought' from 'is'. One cannot simply "follow the science" to a better world, but we can follow the science to a better understanding of the world such that we can better realise the world we (individually) want to see. P.S. I'm not saying that politicised science shows shouldn't exist, just that I think people are right to point out that Nye's show, particular the sexuality episode, is politicised, and not merely because it clarifies scientific misunderstandings. Like I say, two people can both have sound understandings of science and radically different policy proposals. That's politics. Sorry it's a big rambly post. Took a bit of time to get it clear.

[@juliand3565]

Science itself has never been up for debate. But unfortunately science is always up for interpretation! People may get vastly different interpretations from a scientific fact and the more uneducated these people are on the science behind it the wilder those interpretations may be

[@Boredman567]

You summed up most of my problems with the politics section of the video. I'd also add that when a lot of people complain about something being "political", they usually mean that it's presenting an issue in a biased, one-sided, and partisan way. So when Bill tells people they should vote, that's seen as less "political" because people can vote for whoever they want, and whether voting is good isn't really in question in our society. (If we ignore the Republican party's current push to make voting less convenient.) And this definitely relates to the stated problems with how Bill presents the topics. He spends less time giving the viewer a full understanding, and is prone to dismissing other viewpoints without addressing where their disagreement comes from and why they might be wrong. At 34:30 he states it pretty clearly: If you want to actually reach people who believe in something false, "you can't present science as a mic drop, and you can't talk down to them".

[@KNylen]

this is a really well thought out and worded comment- hope it gets more recognition

[@joshuaallgood7030]

You expressed my criticisms better than I could. I would also like to add whether or not the social science models can be accurately described as "hard science" from a philosophical sense. Despite the name "social science", a lot of the humanities has claims that are unfalsifiable because the concepts introduce did not come from conclusions from experiments and studies, but rather pontifications and analysis of history. Many of the terminology used to describe gender expression is derived from the works of gender theorist Judith Butler for example. This is not to discredit Butler's contribution to the humanities, but this leads to a massive debate within the philosophy of science: "essentialism" vs. "constructivism". An essentialist would say that because that while there is evidence that MTF and FTM transgenderism is a real phenomenon because it can be concluded from neuroscientific research about the brains of individuals with "gender dysphoria", they would be more scathing of the concepts like "nonbinary" or "genderfluid" since those come from a position that gender is a social construct (constructivist) and that there's no way to falsify the existence of such gender expression empirically. However, the constructivist would say that since gender is a social construct, it doesn't matter at all if you cannot prove that it exists because we made it exist. And I do think that the distinction between "constructivism" and "essentialism" is really why the episode on gender was so controversial: it comes from a constructivist framework. Because Nye's content was more about "hard science" it would be assumed that he would approach sex from a purely biological and physiological perspective, but he instead uses the social sciences model and takes a less essentialist perspective on the empirical biology given. Granted, I do not want to begin a debate about whether or not gender identities exist at all (personally, I tend to learn more with later Wittgenstein with the idea of "familial resemblance", which I think is a good compromise between essentialism and constructivism), but since conservatives have always had a hardline essentialist view of sex and gender, it makes sense for them to react the way they did.

[@didles123]

@@juliand3565 "Science itself has never been up for debate." Statements like this totally undermine the credibility of science.

[@Dancingonthesun]

Excellent rant on the "science is apolitical" crowd.

[@jht3fougifh393]

It is. But like everything else, it can be used politically, or corrupted by political motivations. I guess that applies to everything, though.

[@nobodynoone2500]

I miss the old Mr. Wizard where you learned to blow stuf up from someone with the friendly disposition of Mr. Rodgers with explosives.

[@annie2684]

Is that the subtle background music of Portal 2 I hear?

[@oldcowbb]

Bill Nye is so self absorbed everything has to be about him, not science, its more noticeable when he is a guest for other shows

[@felixjohnson3874]

I have no idea what youre talking about, how could bill nye be a self absorbed narcassistic scientist if Fauci IS the science? Fake news!

[@registeredjopper]

"Bill didn't make science political; society did." So well said.

[@andyfriederichsen]

He didn't need to join the politicizing science bandwagon.

[@Daddy_Bear_722]

No, science activism forced itself into the public debate instead of just compliling data

[@Sonic_the_hedgedog]

​​@@Daddy_Bear_722 The reason why science activism exists is because people are denying data and facts.

[@richardfrederick6009]

"Every minute is worth watching" - Proceeds to waste a minute of my life with fist bumps

[@TheSaxRunner05]

The random Metroid music is something, but I’m here for it

[@heihei5306]

talk, don’t argue

[@mikesanders8621]

As a New Zealander who has never once seen a Bill Nye show (we had three channels in NZ in the 90s when I was a kid and they played exclusively sitcoms, soap operas, and the news) he always seemed like a really nice guy. Then I read about his interactions with fans.

[@mustafayigitkartal4257]

Appreciate the dirthmouth ost at 29:55 , hollowknight is such a fantastic game with an arguably even better soundtrack.

[@ghoulhive5767]

the legend has finally returned

[@turntech_godhead]

i like the portal music :)

[@ChaoticNeutralMatt]

That was an amazing start 🤣 Edit: So he's got stuck somewhere in self discovery, and other-interest. I'm glad and sad to hear that S2 improved so much, but it feels like it shouldn't have reached the place s1 did.

[@havasicsongorgeza]

You have really good taste in video game music :D

[@havasicsongorgeza]

And thank you for saying Ignaz Semmelweis, I have never heard it in English and it is really funny :D

[@zacharygregson5883]

You truly have moved me. Thank you. I hope to use what you mentioned about politics in science. If there were to be a science talk show again, i would really enjoy one the was kinda like a debate format but could use visual aids or anything that suits this, but instead of having people use options and secondary sources, they would have to be qualified expert in they're field of knowledge. Like you can't have a priest and an evolutionary scientist debate, because they're arguing on two completely different grounds of assumptions of they're world. It would have to be more like the debates that Veritasium and Boom can have. They are using their field of knowledge to explain the problem and listen and adjust their own understanding of the concept.

[@theminer49erz]

I remember before his kids show he had a reoccurring segment on a kids morning show called "Wake Rattle and Roll". However, I also remember some skit show that he was on doing funny joke/satire experiments. I forget the name of it, but it was on MTV or Comedy Central in thw early to mid 90's.I could be wrong about that though.

[@RobleViejo]

I just want to let you know this video has 9k views and you channel has 15.8k subscribers because you are doing everything right. Don't try to cater to anyone who tells you otherwise. Godspeed gentleman.

[@reuternopalzin2422]

Wow, I'm writing this 4 weeks after and now has roughly 4 times that amount of subs.

[@landonadrian5595]

Agreed. Good stuff.

[@gooberius]

3 years later, 584k subs and 150k views

[@pigglebee]

Did not know Derek from veritasium was on that show. His own videos are pretty good at science communication, similar to vsauce without the quirky bald man.

[@PointsofData]

With the crystals, I do honestly think theres something there in regards to placebo/human psychology. Its severely disappointing to know Bill followed the talk show plays to the letter, and just brought people on to dunk them.

[@sheakingdom]

geez the fistbumps only get worse

[@DoctorMikeWilson]

12:13 Clearly Bill is an engineer because that's a volumetric flask, and isn't used for heating over a burner like that. He should have a standard round bottom.

[@flyinginthewind111]

bill is a political agenda pusher parading around as a scientist. just like neil degrass tyson

[@agushernandezquiroga9064]

@@flyinginthewind111 Science is political, whether you want it or not.

[@roryhoeschen1560]

I like the portal music :)

[@roryhoeschen1560]

AND hollow knight? Spectacular.

[@boowiebear]

He is not a scientist. He is a political personality.

[@RobCooper-Bachatador]

Part of the issue is, sadly, that being polarising markets well because it gets our attention in a world where our ability to be entertained is almost gluttonously oversaturated to the point attention spans are growing ever smaller. And in a market where hyper individualism is starving us of the healing affects of a balance of collectivism, most just want to have a 'them' that they can identify their 'us' against.

[@Stiggandr1]

The terrible execution of some of those "science" scenes make me wonder if a Teller style artistic performance of science could work. Teller carries some very simple magic tricks with his flawless execution and quiet creative backdrop.

[@emilyrln]

Well I'm sure as fuck going to watch the second season now. I was disappointed in season 1 for basically the reasons you listed, and knowing that they made improvements to the format is encouraging. I also need to find The Eyes of Nye so I can watch that, too.

[@precisiongaming8776]

That opening sequence has given bill Nye the tittle of Master Fister.

[@Ironclad17]

8:40 You fucked up, I'm totally watching how ice cream sandwiches are made now.

[@btljxs84930]

„Every minute is worth watching“ *minute-long fist-bump-montage* 😂

[@cslack813]

Lots of work put into this and it shows. Great analysis. Subscribed.

[@apollofell3925]

29:50 The inclusion of HK music over this segment, combined with the fact my entire family fled our home due to politicians making laws in opposition to the accepted science, hit me pretty hard.

[@JossCard42]

My wife and I were VERY excited for this show, watched the first two episodes and never came back. Even though we both agreed with what he was saying on the show, we didn't like the very clear hostility that was behind a lot of it, and I couldn't help but feel that it was only furthering a divide that it was, ostensibly, supposed to be bridging.

[@CountGremlin]

Veritasium was there? Damn son

[@zumabbar]

bro pls turn on the subtitle autogeneration. thx

[@mackenzieonyx7586]

can u turn on transcript for this one plz? :C

[@gabes1733]

Yo why is there hollow knight music at 30:00 lmfao

[@orchdork775]

Glad to see more people talking about the importance of empathy and compassion when talking to people who have doubts about science. Attacking them only supports the narrative that those who disagree with the scientific consensus are being silenced for sharing the "truth," and that's why their beliefs aren't widely accepted. The more angry and insulting you get, the more you fuel their fire and radicalize their supporters. For example, Professor Dave has made many videos where he brutally insults anyone who doubts science or who doesn't understand certain scientific concepts, and it really struck me as unnecessary and unhelpful. Even as someone who loves science, he often mentioned things that I didn't completely understand, and proceeded to insult the flat earthers for being so stupid as to not know such an obvious thing that a 4th grader would know, but then if they are stupid for not knowing it, doesn't that mean I am stupid for not knowing it? Those types of tactics are extremely mean and they promote the shaming of people who lack a formal education, and support the harmful idea that your intelligence determines your worth as a person. I'm sure he would say that he only meant those insults for the flat earthers and not people who respect science, but it doesn't work like that; you can't just pick and choose who your insults apply to. It's like if you made fun of someone you don't like by calling them fat and disgusting, but then someone else who is overweight hears you and ends up feeling really hurt and insecure because of it, even though you weren't directing the insult at them. By using the word fat as an insult and using it along with the word disgusting, you are implying that being fat is a negative quality worth insulting, and that it determines a person's worth and desirability. Similarly, by blatantly mocking flat earthers for not understanding gravity or buoyancy or planetary motion because those topics are allegedly, "simple," Dave is saying that people who don't understand those things are stupid and that they have less worth because of it. It just really bothers me when people use shame and insults in a debate or argument, because why not just address the actual problem that is making you want to insult them in the first place? Professor Dave never needed to stoop so low in order to have a reason to convince people that science is trustworthy and that the earth is round. Similarly, you don't need to stoop to insults when trying to convince someone that vaccines don't cause autism or that big pharma isn't selling poison to make you sick so you'll need more pills. There's so much evidence to support your side, so there's literally no reason to get aggressive or mean unless they are being mean first, and even then you being mean back will just support their narrative, so you might as well just politely end the conversation at that point. If you are engaging in conversations about pseudoscience in an effort to have a positive impact, then there is no excuse for that kind of behavior. There is a significant amount of scientific evidence that shaming and insulting actually make people double down and believe the untruths even more, so you'd be better off not engaging in the conversation at all if you can't keep yourself from being aggressive and/or condescending. Just know that you can't use wanting to inform people as an excuse for being mean, because it had the opposite effect. Also, you can't use wanting to help people as an excuse for shaming them on general, because again, there is significant evidence that shaming is unhelpful and even actively harmful, while having empathy and compassion are the most effective way to support someone and encourage them to make healthy changes.

[@soulcutterx13]

Ugh the Galileo meme. He was censured because he refused to address the core arguments of his opposition, the mainstream scientific belief at the time, and then instead making adjustments not to shore up weaknesses in his case, but to make ad hominem attacks on the Pope for requesting clarification. Can you imagine if you submitted a paper to a journal with a grand new theory of, say, thermodynamics, got feedback saying your theory had been debunked before you were born and you hadn't done anything to address that debunking? And instead of addressing that feedback, and demonstrating how those criticisms were false, you instead included a section specifically calling out the editor of the journal for being a moron? But you actually work for that journal, and you refuse to work elsewhere?

[@colinmaclaurin407]

I was hoping to see a comment like this. The video’s creator sorely needs to read historians, e.g. the 2 books on myths in science edited by Ronald Numbers

[@Drakeblood97]

More importantly, why was Bill using a volumetric flask to boil a liquid? He should've used an Erlenmeyer flask

[@SolarFlareAmerica]

"science is when flask"- jimmy Kimmel showrunner type

[@nickr26]

If any one knows the name of the song at 30:30 please let me know. I know it from somewhere but can't think of where. Is it valheim?

[@MaryIsHereNow]

It's from hollow knight but I forgot which song

[@briannawaldorf8485]

I love that you always remind everyone how much harm that Reagan did

[@commander-fox-q7573]

The rayman music at the start works so well

[@hussbilbs]

Give it up for DJ Seahorse

[@tryhardfinessedyou]

This channel has a delightful mix of content. Criminally under subscribed

[@minecraft-shower425]

1:00 I was so weirded out, I just saw a glimpse of gus sorola and was like, that's rooster teeth, what are they doing here?? and I went down a small rabbit hole of they apparently were a guest on this show for a small cameo?

[@thexbigxgreen]

I was not expecting to see Randy Couture in a mascot outfit in this video

[@symmetrie_bruch]

24:14 not quite sure what you´re talking about here. i mean he is not a real scientist, that´s just a fact, he´s an engineer and there´s nothing wrong with that. just because you´re not a real scientist doesn´t mean you can´t be good science educator or commincator or broadly knowledgeble about the topic.

[@BobbyBroccoli]

Hey! I also studied engineering, same boat as Bill. Maybe this got lost in translation but I'm supportive of him here. I actually have a whole video prior to this one where I say much the same thing you are.

[@symmetrie_bruch]

@@BobbyBroccoli yeah i did get the impression that you meant to defend him from what often follows after "he´s not a real scientist" i.e. "therefor he doesn´t know what he´s talking about". the latter is obviously unfounded and disengenious. but it doesn´t change the fact that the fromer is true, even when uttered by a pathological liar like ken ham. so it seemd to me (and that might really just me misunderstanding) that you were implying he is a real scientist and maybe in doing so, unintionally lending credibility to the notion that you have to be a real scientist to be very ecucated and educating about science. it´s the first video i saw of you (certainly won´t be the last) and actually only commented because that was one of the very few things that stood out as a bit odd to me.

[@BobbyBroccoli]

Yeah a running theme in my work is trying to unpack the idea that a Ph.D is the end-all-be-all to be an academic. One the one hand you have people with less formal education that are great communicators and educators, and also that just having a Ph.D on its own just means you had the time and money to get one. Your body of work needs to be judged by your peers, and your skillset may be extremely focused and niche.

[@symmetrie_bruch]

@@BobbyBroccoli couldn´t agree more with that 👌

[@symmetrie_bruch]

@@Mutantcy1992 nobody said it was. and indeed that´s exactly what i was saying. maybe i should have been clearer. i meant bill nye isn´t just not just a scientist because he´s an engineer but because he doesn´t do science and hasn´t done so for roughly forty years

[@physicsbutawesome]

Important lesson, well put.

[@CM-yz3ze]

Gosh. This is great.

[@blazikenblitz7772]

I came across this video after seeing references to the sex song being made and have stayed away from Bill Nye not for his scientific conclusions, but very much for the lack of empathy when explaining political/scientific views as expressed in this video. Very, very well made video, and it simply makes me wish that there *was* something that did take those controversial topics, ones that are steeped in political stigma, and did lay the evidence bare, showed the evidence, and like you said, left it for the viewer to make their own decisions on. If there is something besides searching aimlessly through peer-reviewed articles, I can't say I've seen it, and it makes me sad that there's nothing that I can point to when trying to help some who haven't fully caught up to the times.

[@uchihasasuke7436]

Agreed, but "general anti-vax" and "I got the covid vaccines but I'm still a bit shaky on taking a vaccine that's had fewer trials than many other vaccines" are a completely different story

[@d.h.1999]

There are people with a rather conservative personality. Which is innate. They are hesitant about new technologies, because it's their psychological make up. Calling them anti science, is anti science. "Science doesn't exist in a vaccum because it relates to people, politically and psychologically. Until it doesn't and then your're anti science." People need to be way more humble and careful, before they make such broad claims. Like, really, really, really, really way more.

[@isaac6077]

Ye. But yer never gonna find mainstream media saying that