117 Quotes by Bill Nye

We are just a speck, on a speck, orbiting a speck, in the corner of a speck, in the middle of nowhere.

To leave the world better than you found it, sometimes you have to pick up other people's trash.

Science is the best idea humans have ever had. The more people who embrace that idea, the better.

Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back. And it’s fine if you as an adult want to run around pretending or claiming that you don’t believe in evolution, but if we educate a generation of people who don’t believe in science, that’s a recipe for disaster. We talk about the Internet. That comes from science. Weather forecasting. That comes from science. The main idea in all of biology is evolution. To not teach it to our young people is wrong.

You and I are made of stardust. We are the stuff of exploded stars. We are therefore, at least 1 way that the Universe knows itself. That, to me, is astonishing.

There really is no such thing as race. We all came from Africa. We are all of the same stardust. We are all going to live and die on the same planet, a Pale Blue Dot in the vastness of space. We have to work together.

There's nothing I believe in more strongly than getting young people interested in science and engineering, for a better tomorrow, for all humankind.

I speak with dogs frequently. They don't really talk, but I feel they're communicating.

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The meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future. The claim that we would not have morals or ethics without religion is extraordinary. Animals in nature seem to behave in moral ways without organized religion.

The natural world is a package deal; you don't get to select which facts you like and which you don't.

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.

Science is the best thing humans beings have ever come up with. And if it isn't, science will fix it.

The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old. It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs.

Bicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. There's something wrong with a society that drives a car to work out in a gym.

Science is the key to our future, and if you don't believe in science, then you're holding everybody back.

By the way, most of the light that comes from the sun is green.

Science provides a much more satisfactory way to seek answers than does any religion.

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The most serious problem facing humankind is climate change. All of these people breathing and burning our atmosphere has led to an extraordinarily dangerous situation. I hope next generation will emerge and produce technology, regulations, and a worldview that enable as many of us as possible to live happy healthy lives.

People and stars are made of the same stuff.

If you look back on all the teachers that you liked, I am sure you will find they were very entertaining.

Not wasting any water bottles is good. Not leaving the lights on is good. Turning the thermostat down in the winter, up in the summer, is good. But the best thing any of us in the developed world, especially in the United States, can be doing is talking about it.

What happens to other species also happens to us.

The information you get from social media is not a substitute for academic discipline at all.

Hard to find anything lovelier than a tree. They grow at right angles to a tangent of the nominal sphere of the Earth.

We are special in the sense that we can know our place in the cosmos. We can know our place in space. We are at least one of the cosmos's ways of knowing itself. That fills me with reverence and joy. Another insight I really want people to consider is this: everyone has gotten this far. Everyone you meet has made it this far. Nobody is superior to anyone else from an evolutionary standpoint.

You start doing the addictive behavior to feel good and then your receptors get overloaded with dopamine, then you stop doing the addictive thing and some of the receptors have shut down and you don't have enough dopamine to feel good. So then you feel bad and go back to the addictive behavior to get more dopamine. The strange thing is that it works with what we think of as uppers and downers and whatever you call gambling - sidewaysers.

There are two ways to be rich: to have more or need less. It's estimated that we squander about 30 percent of our energy leaving the lights on, the refrigerator door open, and so on. Then there is the enormous amount of food that we expend huge amounts of energy to raise and then throw away.

The Big Bang banged, and for some reason we’re here. And that’s astonishing. And that we can understand that, that’s the most astonishing.

Talk about science with everyone you meet. Especially talk about climate change. It needs to become a part of our everyday conversation (the way it is everywhere else in the world).

America has had many other discoverers besides Columbus, but he seems to have made more satisfactory arrangements with the historians than any of the others.

When we explore the cosmos, we come to believe and prove that we can solve problems that have never been solved. It brings out the best in us. Space exploration imbues everyone with an optimistic view of the future.

Unlike science, creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past.

If you want to deny evolution and live in your world, that's completely inconsistent with the world we observe, that's fine. But don't make your kids do it. Because we need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future. We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems.

There is no debate in the scientific community...We need [Congress] to change things, not to deny what's happening.

Recommending or insisting on abstinence has been completely ineffective.

Humor is everywhere in that there's irony in just about anything a human does.

Climate change is happening, humans are causing it, and I think this is perhaps the most serious environmental issue facing us.

I've always loved airplanes and flight. The space program was really important to me as a kid. I still have a photo of Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon in my living room.

The most serious problem facing humankind is climate change.

The philosophy of science is inherent in the process. This is to say, you think critically, you draw a conclusion based on evidence, but we all pursue discovery based on our observations. That's where science starts.

Winter lingered so long in the lap of Spring that it occasioned a great deal of talk.

If you meet somebody who says he or she has never dreamed of flying, I don't believe you. I mean, they're lying.

I used to play ultimate Frisbee, and I just got a reputation for making popcorn at parties. I don't mean to brag on myself, but I make the popcorn in the pot, and it comes out fine every time.

If the Earth gets hit by an asteroid, it's game over. It's control-alt-delete for civilization.

SCIENCE is a part of EVERYONE'S everyday life.

If you want grown-ups to recycle, just tell their kids the importance of recycling, and they'll be all over it.

No matter what you may believe spiritually or otherwise, the Earth is clearly not 6,000 or 10,000 years old.

My father was a very good Boy Scout. He was very skilled with knots, and he showed me how to tie a bow tie.

Burning carbon-based substances like oil, gas, and especially coal, produces billions of tons of extra carbon dioxide each year. Methane gas from cows and pigs and other animals on our large farms ends up in the atmosphere as well, trapping more of the sun's energy as heat.

I say to the grown-ups, 'If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that's completely inconsistent with everything we've observed in the universe that's fine. But don't make your kids do it.'

There are two questions that get to us all: Are we alone in the Universe? And, where did we come from? For me, science provides a much more satisfactory way to seek answers than does any religion I've come across. With that said, the universe is mysterious and wonderful. It fills me with reverence for nature and our place among the stars; our place in space.

When we see the shadow on our images, are we seeing the time 11 minutes ago on Mars? Or are we seeing the time on Mars as observed from Earth now? It's like time travel problems in science fiction. When is now; when was then?

If NASA is to reach beyond the Moon and someday reach Mars, it must be relieved of the burden of launching people and cargo to low earth orbit. To do that, we must invest more in commercial spaceflight.

Our goal in science is to discover universal laws of nature. That pursuit fills me with wonder.

I just want to remind us all there are billions of people in the world who are deeply religious, who get enriched by the wonderful sense of community by their religion. But these same people do not embrace the extraordinary view that the Earth is somehow only 6,000 years old.

Television isn't inherently good or bad. You go to a bookstore, there are how many thousands of books, but how many of those do you want? Five? Television's the same way. If you're going to show people stuff, television is the way to go. Words and pictures show things.

There really is no such thing as race.

We should educate more women and girls. Because that is the surest route to controllably, manageably reducing the human population. Educated women have fewer kids. And the kids they do have are better cared for and are more successful. As I like to say, it's not one thing that we need to focus on. It's everything all at once.

That's what makes a human a human, if we store information outside our bodies.

Along with the evidence of common sense, researchers have proven scientifically that humans are all one people. We're a lot like dogs in that regard. If a Great Dane interacts (can we say interact?) with a Chihuahua, you get a dog.

The US Navy has several people on every ship that can navigate by the stars. They don't fool with that.

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.

For me, the meaning of life is pretty clear: Living things strive to pass their genes into the future.

But as the cerebellum degrades with age, so does the quality of memories. The memories are there, but they're not as good.

I tell personal stories associated with aspects of the theory, and I hope they are interesting and compelling. I don't feel you're going to change a grownup's mind in one reading. People have to be exposed to scientific ideas over and over again for years. It's also not a textbook.

Climate change is a real deal. So, hey deniers - cut it out, and let's get to work.

It is my mission to change the world. I'm not kidding: Make no small plans, dream mighty things. I feel if we get enough people engaged in climate change, we will get enough people to change the world. We will revolutionize the way we produce electricity and provide clean water to people.

Some of the most wonderful aspects and consequences of evolution have been discovered only recently. This is in stark contrast to creationism, which offers a static view of the world, one that cannot be challenged or tested with reason. And because it cannot make predictions, it cannot lead to new discoveries, new medicines, or new ways to feed all of us.

There are just two people entitled to refer to themselves as "we"; one is the editor and the other is the fellow with a tapeworm.

Apparently there is redundancy in memory: You store the same memory in different parts of your brain for accessing at different speeds. That speed would depend on the frequency of use and the importance of the knowledge.

If you memorize the periodic table it will speed you up if you're a chemist, but by and large, the reason you have a periodic table is so that you can store that information outside of your body. That way it frees up some part of your brain to do something else...

We need them. We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future.

Teaching creationism in science class as an alternative to evolution is inappropriate.

How did we let an ideological resistance to inquiry become such a prominent part of our society?

From an evolutionary standpoint you can't just wipe everything out and start over, and I don't think you can do it in the school system either.

Everybody remembers numbers and computers remember numbers. People remember procedures and computers certainly remember procedures. But the other thing that's still important is that your perception as a human is affected subtly by all this stuff that you can't quite articulate. You run your life according to all this stuff that's happened to you. All of your memories affect everything you do whereas with a computer, there's adaptive software and things, but it's more literal.

One of the drawbacks of English is you can't spell things by hearing them.

If we raise a generation of students who dont believe in the process of science, who think everything that weve come to know about nature and the universe can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some ancient text, youre not going to continue to innovate.

Tax dollars intended for science education must not be used to teach creationism as any sort of real explanation of nature, because any observation or process of inference about our origin and the nature of the universe disproves creationism in every respect.

Evolution is a theory, and it's a theory that you can test. We've tested evolution in many ways. You can't present good evidence that says evolution is not a fact.

Intuitively you want some place [such as your phone] to store phone numbers, so you have that part of your brain to do other tasks.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Everyone, red state, blue state, everyone supports space exploration.

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.

You stop planetary exploration, those people who do that extraordinary work are going to have to go do something else.

I hope climate science becomes the big thing. And then what I want is electrical engineers to solve the world's energy problems, energy distribution problems. I want mechanical engineers to make better transportation systems. I want chemical engineers to develop better solar panels, and so on.

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.

But investment in space stimulates society, it stimulates it economically, it stimulates it intellectually, and it gives us all passion.

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.

Evolution is one of the most powerful and important ideas ever developed in the history of science. Every question it raises leads to new answers, new discoveries, and new smarter questions. The science of evolution is as expansive as nature itself. It is also the most meaningful creation story that humans have ever found.

I try to speak plainly and be sympathetic to the idea of religions where people gather in community. They get a sense of people looking out for each other. My claim is that we have a tendency to look out for each other whether or not there is a religion involved.

I've got no problem with anybody's religion. But if you go claiming the Earth is only 10,000 years old, that's just wrong.

I abandoned my religious teachings after I read the Bible twice - cover to cover. It took me a couple of years.

The thing about a theory in science is it allows you make predictions. Evolutionary theory allows us to predict what apples will taste good next harvest.

If you just take a single human and put him or her in the forest he or she might not do very well without some sort of education which he got or she got from some tribe.

Religion is a completely different thing from the claim that the Earth is six thousand years old. That's just crazy.

Incidentally, the creationists that I've encountered diligently deny that our Earth's climate is being altered by people. This point of view and teaching is in absolutely no one's best interest. Here's hoping we can work together and preserve the Earth, for us - us humans.

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

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.

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

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

I meet so many people who are intimidated by arithmetic.

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.

As you may know, I am a mechanical engineer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. Your are not paying attention to whats happening in the universe around you.