Top 154 Quotes & Sayings by Bill Nye - Page 3

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. The key to our being here now is time, 4.54 billion (Earth) years of time. Nuclear fission wasn't discovered until long after Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace published their original books and papers, for example. Our ability to measure atomic masses wasn't developed until long after their deaths. These features of nature enabled us to reckon the age of the Earth and compare it with speciation rates here.

I don't perceive an anti-religious agenda, especially with regard to Christians and Christianity.

The debate [in Undeniable] was nominally about creationism as a "viable" explanation for what we observe around us. For my side, the debate went very well; I'm not sure what I would change, although I can imagine shortening my answers during the rebuttals, perhaps.

In another couple centuries I'm sure that worldview won't even exist. There's no evidence for it.

I'll admit that the discovery of evolution is humbling, but it is also empowering. It transforms our relationship to the life around us. Instead of being outsiders watching the natural world go by, we are insiders. We are part of the process; we are the exquisite result of billions of years of natural research and development.

Anybody who grew up with the space program is a fan of science fiction.

When or if answers are found, you can be assured those answers will lead to more questions. Is the troubling or wonderful? It depends on your view of your place in nature, your place among the stars; I suppose.

The theory of evolution was not formally published until shortly before Faraday's death. Evolution was yet to be discovered during Faraday's life. Also, I don't think that Michael Faraday would claim that the Earth is extraordinarily young.

The future of commerce is going to be all electronic. The gold standard was a fine idea, but electronic changes of funds and credits will be the future.

I feel that I've often pointed out that there are countless aspects of life and nature that scientists and scientific thinkers cannot explain. Why the universe is accelerating in its expansion and what came before the Big Bang serve as compelling examples. The process of science provides a way to seek answers to those questions.

Evolution is not something you can believe in or not believe in like do you believe in gravity.

I always say when you see that old black-and-white footage of the rocket on the launch pad and it falls over and explodes, that's because people had slide rules. Not having the decimal point is a real drawback. You want the decimal point, take it from me.

I don't perceive an anti-religious agenda, especially with regard to Christians and Christianity. The issue being debated was creationism, the idea that the Earth is 6,000 years old. As I understand it, this involves the Bible's Old Testament exclusively.

People get a lot out of being religious. They have strong senses of community and mutual support. So, what's not to love [there]?

There really is no such thing as race.

Millennial voters are very concerned about climate change and will vote for candidates who are planning to address it. But the systems that are in place - people talk about gerrymandering and the money that's in politics, this is a real thing, a real effect - and it's hard for climate change-denying legislators to get voted out. But I predict it will happen.

Without an end to the burning of fossil fuels, coal especially, most of us will live shorter lives. I'm hopeful, but very, very concerned.

Researchers have proven that scientifically, that all humans are one people

The strange thing about grinding that might surprise many people is that you can grind things and shape them using materials that are generally somewhat softer than the thing you're grinding and shaping.

If you have this idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, you are denying, if you will, everything that you can touch and see. Youre not paying attention to whats happening in the universe around you.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. If one's faith requires one to abandon or ignore natural laws, well, that person is going to have trouble reconciling religion and science. Otherwise, there is no any conflict.

Speaking of human computers, there is a guy named Art Benjamin, he's a human calculator. He says it's a skill he learned as a kid. Now he's a math professor at Harvey Mudd. He can find the square root of a six digit number in a few seconds. Practice.

History is but the record of the public and official acts of human beings. It is our object, therefore, to humanize our history and deal with people past and present; people who ate and possibly drank; people who were born, flourished and died; not grave tragedians, posing perpetually for their photographs.

Reading their letters and the First Amendment of the US Constitution, I infer that this nation's founders noted that religions have been at the center of great deal of trouble, so they precluded the US government from getting involved in religion, i.e. "... shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Over the centuries, various religions have laid claim to various morals; consider the difficulties outsiders are having today in the Middle East, for example.

If you decide to become a dancer on Broadway, never say who your favorite dance partner is, because members of the media will presume you never want to dance with anybody else.

The oncoming trouble I speak of is climate change. It's going to affect all of you in the same way the Second World War consumed people of my parent's generation.

I am so old, I entered engineering school with a slide rule. And I left engineering school with a calculator. I can still use a slide rule but it's not a skill you especially need anymore.

When we sit down to draw or paint the sun's rays, we generally use yellow because in the morning and the evening with the blue light scattered away so strongly you're left with a little bit of red and it comes out yellowish.

The world's going to change climatically. We just want to control the change. We want to have a high quality of life for billions of people as we pass through this era.

I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat people. It's not that we need more food. It's that we need to manage our food system better.

Promoting a religious agenda that is to apply to every citizen is inconsistent with our laws in the US. It seems to me that your community and mine can live and work together without conflict.

People that don't want to get down to the business at hand. Instead of just doing less, we have to find ways of doing more with less. That's the key to the future.

People confuse the word cynicism with the word skepticism. One is “you’re not gonna pay attention to anything, think everything’s screwed up, nothing’s ever gonna work out right”, that’s cynicism. But skepticism is, “you’re presented with evidence and you do your best to draw conclusions based on that”. So, as the saying goes, Bill Nye, do you believe in ghosts? No. However, I would love to see one. Bring it on. I’m open minded to the idea, but the more I look into it in a skeptical frame of thinking, the less likely it seems.

I meet so many people who are intimidated by arithmetic.