# Scientists Who Are Actually Stupid **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2016, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306 "2016-01-26T21:33:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/21 "2016-01-26T22:33:09Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > Honestly, I’m not real familiar with is show, but I watched him on Bill Maher’s show and Maher led him around like a bull with a ring in his nose. As he would with you or me. Not sure about your point. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/22 "2016-01-26T22:39:36Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > The first one is on [Neil deGrasse Tyson](http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/21/scientists-who-are-actually-really-stupid-1-neil-degrasse-tyson/). Ah, so Milo has ended up with a gig at Breitbart then. He’s a bit special is our Milo. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/23 "2016-01-26T22:47:17Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > Ah, so Milo has ended up with a gig at Breitbart then. He’s a bit special is our Milo. Where’s he from originally? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/24 "2016-01-26T22:54:18Z")
Hawking isn’t the smartest man in the world, either. I mean, he’s extremely smart, almost frighteningly so, but there are some who are even smarter. He largely has a reputation as the smartest because the concept of a genius with a useless body captures the public imagination. And I don’t know how smart Bill Nye is, and he’s certainly a very skilled entertainer, but I can’t say I think much of his ability as a science educator. He always seems to cut every lesson short and jump to the next one, just at the point right before the audience would learn anything. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/25 "2016-01-26T22:56:27Z")
Two things to remember about scientists: 1. These days they are mostly specialists and outside of their specialty they may be extremely ignorant about a lot of things. This isn’t because they’re stupid, it’s because they’re specialized. 2. There are a lot of legit scientists, but few of them are even going to win a big prize or make an earth-shattering breakthrough that makes them a household name. Now, a point was raised that there is a difference between being an _educator_ and a _scientist_. I’ve actually worked as what we’ll call a mundane assistant to real scientists (make travel arrangements, keep the copier full of paper, re-order for the coffee machine, etc.) and real science is pretty obscure stuff, and while most scientists communicate well enough with others in their technical field they aren’t so good at communicating with the general public. Problem is, they NEED to communicate with people outside their field because that is ultimately where their funding comes from. I’ll also note that real science can be amazingly cut-throat. So, once in awhile you have a scientist that can actually communicate with the outside world - Stephen J. Gould, Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc. Immediately two things happen within their science community: first, the communicator gets attacked for getting things wrong - usually legitimate points of contention professionally, but honest to god unless a layperson understands the basic (and yes, dumbed-down) concepts underlying evolution they’re not going to have the basis to understand the arguments around whether or not [_hallucigenia_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia) is being portrayed right side up or upside down on an illustration, or why there is a dispute in the first place or why it matters. Likewise, criticism for dumbing down the math or glossing over some details - you get too picky the beginner isn’t going to understand and you’ll lose the audience. Second, because the communicator becomes known to the public and may well become financially better off than his/her colleagues there are issues of jealousy. The average astrophysicist does not get written into the comic book _Superman_ but NdGT did. NdGT also gets paid for TV appearances, which no doubt adds to his bank account. Then there is the issue of “these guys haven’t made a significant contribution” or “these guys haven’t published in years” or some variant. Well, the truth is not everyone stays a cutting-edge scientist for life - they go on to technical jobs, or become professors… or write/video for the layperson. I don’t know what this is seen as a problem. If someone is no longer contributing original science work via publication is it really a problem if they move on to being an educator, or writing books attempting to explain science to the general public? What do people want them to do, go on the dole? And, of course, there’s the whole political-view thing. A sort of “if they’re so smart how can they support THAT policy?” Well, because they have a different opinion that you do? Or maybe if all those smart people believe in climate change there might be something to it? Calling a political opponent “stupid” is not engaging in debate, it’s a form of mud-throwing when the mud-slinger can’t come up with a substantive argument or provide counter-evidence to the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/26 "2016-01-26T23:00:46Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Just Climate Change. They appear to be OK with evolution. The Bill Nye article complained at length about Nye being an atheist who supported teaching kids about evolution. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/27 "2016-01-26T23:08:14Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The Bill Nye article complained at length about Nye being an atheist who supported teaching kids about evolution. From the article: > [@](#): > > Even when debating young-earth creationists, which should be a fairly easy task, Nye fails to meet expectations. The Daily Beast, hardly a conservative publication, admitted that Nye’s famous debate with creationist Ken Ham was a “nightmare for science.” Whereas atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens at least knew how to present an argument, Nye can do little but hurl abuse. Emphasis added. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/28 "2016-01-26T23:13:15Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Yes. > > As with everything that spews out of the Breithole[sup]TM[/sup], there are kernels of truth in both articles–kernels which are massaged, misrepresented, exaggerated, and packaged to serve the desires of the site. The goal is getting clicks and making money from True Believers (and hopefully luring in brand new True Believers) with dishonesty. > > So yeah, hit jobs. > [@Rodgers01](#): > > Sure that’s possible. Those articles, though… I have no strong feelings towards either Tyson or Nye, but I couldn’t even finish reading the first link because it was a such vituperative hack job. If either scientist is getting a little full of himself or needs to be de-hyped (and I have no idea if they do) there are more rational, persuasive ways to do it. It reminded me of one of those articles you sometimes see that goes on and on about Martin Luther King Jr.'s alleged plagiarism, as though that obliterated all of the man’s accomplishments. :rolleyes: The above two posts probably sum up my own feelings on these two pieces on Breitbart. I like Milo Yiannopoulos. He is a breath of fresh air imo, but he’s also a troll of sorts. These guys are obviously not stupid, but they both have elements of rent-a-mouth media whorishness about them; a bit like Milo Yiannopoulos himself. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/29 "2016-01-26T23:20:42Z")
Hit jobs (well, at least the Tyson one is - I felt disinclined to read the author’s opinion of Nye), and shitty hit jobs at that, written at the middle school “lol ur a fag” level. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/30 "2016-01-26T23:53:41Z")
I didn’t go to the Breitbart site. Life is too short. It just follows a long wingnut tradition of trashing science _ **popularizers** _ in order to try to discredit science, usually climate change. Here, I can do it, too: [trash] A couple of the details presented in Al Gore’s film _Inconvenient Truth_ are incorrect or could be easily misinterpreted. Furthermore, did you know that Al Gore lives in a really big house and personally uses lots of electricity? Clearly, Al Gore is stoooopid and a hypocrite, and since he’s a major climate scientist (maybe the only one) it’s obvious that climate change is not happening. [/trash] If anyone has any other questions about climate change, I’ll be here all week. Or, you can ask the nice folks over at breitbart. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/31 "2016-01-27T00:15:47Z")
I do think that NdT is sort of a Twitter-friendly scientist who makes good soundbytes. That doesn’t make him “stupid,” however. Breitbart makes some weird claims: - Grad students are allowed to have personal lives. - He “had to go elsewhere” to get his PhD. Most people get the MA/MS and PhD at the same place (or the degree skips the former). But it is not uncommon for people to switch schools after getting a master’s. Doing so is not evidence of incompetence at all and in fact may be a good way to gain breadth of knowledge. - What the fuck kind of science student writes “essays”? - They’re probably right about Bruno. It wasn’t about science vs. religion. Neither was Galileo, but people still believe so. - Breitbart doesn’t explain the Newton thing very well, but Dec 25 was the Julian calendar, and we use the Gregorian today (Jan 4th is the equivalent). That was very grating when I saw his tweet on Facebook or some such place. Also an alchemist. - Do you guys really not understand how pricing works for out-of-print DVD box sets? I could list one on Amazon for $10,000, but that doesn’t reflect the actual price. I think it’s good when people change their opinion rather than clinging to something despite evidence, but Nye’s anti-GMO stance was a big negative. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Just Climate Change. They appear to be OK with evolution. It makes fun of **young earth** creationism, but it isn’t clear if they believe something else like ID. It always makes me laugh to watch old earth creationist types roll their eyes with equal vigor to scientists over young earth creationist claims. And of course, they might not be opposed to the idea that climate change is occurring, but that humans are the cause or that we can do anything about it (I don’t know their editorial stance but I suspect that it is as wishy-washy as they accuse Tyson and Nye about). Will they do Carson despite ideological bent or is that too easy? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/32 "2016-01-27T00:16:01Z")
> [@Doyle](#): > > I know it is incredibly biased, but there are a few things that I found interesting. Bill Nye only has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. I’m not sure how that qualifies him as an expert. So far as I am aware, Nye purports to explain scientific principles and methods to may people, at a lay level. A bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering seems sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/33 "2016-01-27T00:19:24Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Both critiques are fairly summarized as: “I disagree with their political views, and that makes them stupid.” > > If you believe either commentary contains any legitimate, non-political basis for questioning the intelligence of either man, I invite you to post it. Every time I see either of those two slammed (on facebook) it’s _always_ my extremely right wing friends. Neil is an astrophysicist, so I think that can stop anyone from claiming he isn’t a scientist. Bill Nye is an engineer, I’m not sure how that falls into the realm of ‘scientist’ but now matter how you look at it, it boils down to ‘they’re smarter than (the royal) you’. I’d like to see anyone that thinks they’re stupid figure out, on the back of an envelope, how big a baseball diamond would need to be on Mars to make the game playable. In fact, I doubt anyone that would call them stupid is anywhere close to as smart as either of them, just just about any field. Or at least in any hard science. I didn’t read the two linked articles but I clicked on the Neil one and noticed that the author ripped Neil for his tweets. If you listen to StarTalk you’ll find that Neil says those are just stupid things that pop into his head from time to time. Random calculations he does for fun. Silly things he thinks up. Calling him stupid over that, seems like a waste of energy. A couple months ago my most righty friend made the comment that Bill isn’t a scientist and/or climate scientist, therefore he shouldn’t be allowed to talk about science, he should stick to talking about things within his profession. I’m still kicking myself that it took me a week to come up with the comeback\* of ‘well, since you’re not a politician doesn’t that mean you should refrain from posting things about politics?’ By then it was far too late to post it. I will if he brings it up again. In short, if you don’t like them, don’t listen to them. I know Bill is a bit out spoken but it’s not like you hear ‘us’ (in general) running around telling you that the pope is the most stupid person evar. Live and let live. What bugs me the most about people that don’t believe in climate change is what they’re fighting for…the’re fighting for the right to pollute more. I always want to show them those [pictures](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2011/11/documerica-images-of-america-in-crisis-in-the-1970/d03_A-550175/main_1200.jpg?1420518451) from the 70’s, before the EPA and ask them, even if they don’t believe in climate change, if they really want to go back to that. \*Yes, l’esprit de l’escalier, I know. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/34 "2016-01-27T00:19:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Both critiques are fairly summarized as: “I disagree with their political views, and that makes them stupid.” And people on this board object to that critique? It seems to be an almost universally held opinion here. Personally, I always preferred Beakman to Bill Nye. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/35 "2016-01-27T00:20:09Z")
Tyson’s quip about Dec 25 is just that-- a quip, a humorous observation, made funny by the subversion of expectation. It fails as literal history both because of the Julian / Gregorian calendar business and the fact that Christ’s own birth was unlikely to have been Dec 25 either. But in both cases we assign “December 25th,” as the birth date, even though knowing it’s not correct. Because we do this, the joke works. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/36 "2016-01-27T00:21:19Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > And people on this board object to that critique? It seems to be an almost universally held opinion here. > > Personally, I always preferred Beakman to Bill Nye. People here object to that method when it’s used in the wrong direction; they enthusiastically embrace it when it skewers someone they wish skewered. Some people here, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/37 "2016-01-27T00:31:25Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > What bugs me the most about people that don’t believe in climate change is what they’re fighting for…the’re fighting for the right to pollute more. I always want to show them those [pictures](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2011/11/documerica-images-of-america-in-crisis-in-the-1970/d03_A-550175/main_1200.jpg?1420518451) from the 70’s, before the EPA and ask them, even if they don’t believe in climate change, if they really want to go back to that. While I agree with the majority of what you write, I don’t agree with the quoted paragraph above. Your picture shows smokestacks belching particulate matter into the air. That’s pollution, to be sure, and the EPA has indeed made great strides to curtail it. But the climate change fight does not involve a return to those days. Controlling climate change involves controlling carbon emissions, something that was not quite in the radar of the 1970s era EPA. Scrubbing our emissions clean of particle matter and being careful about destruction of the ozone layer is not exactly the same as managing carbon dioxide excess, although there’s certainly some overlap. In their words, it’s not accurate to accuse someone who fights carbon emissions controls of wanting to return to the scene you posted. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/38 "2016-01-27T00:32:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > From the article: > > Emphasis added. There are many old earth creationists that do think that there was micro but not macro evolution. In essence they might look as believers of evolution but they are really like the lukewarmers of human induced climate change. ---
**Author:** ![ElderSign](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eldersign/32/8263_2.png) [@ElderSign](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElderSign)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/39 "2016-01-27T00:33:06Z")
Amazing how someone needs verification if the article on Tyson from Breitbart is a hit piece when it starts off like: > [@](#): > > Neil deGrasse Tyson made the decision a long time ago to be a sort of media cheerleader for science instead of an actual scientist, and although he isn’t a great communicator, it was the right decision because he was unlikely ever to trouble the Nobel committee. Also, he is stupid and his politics are dumb. > > Tyson, whom liberals love because they are racists who can’t believe a black guy could be smart enough to be a scientist and so spontaneously ejaculate and soil themselves every time they see him on TV, hasn’t published anything of note for years. The advantage of being a celebrity scientist is that you don’t actually have to do any science. You’re exempted from the usual “publish or perish” rules. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2016, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306/40 "2016-01-27T00:33:19Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The Bill Nye article complained at length about Nye being an atheist who supported teaching kids about evolution. [Here’s a really good clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHbYJfwFgOU) that he put out a while back that I think ruffled a few feathers on exactly that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scientists-who-are-actually-stupid/744306.md?page=3)