His new Netflix show isn't called Bill Nye Saves the World for nothing.
Almost three months into the Trump presidency, this government's pathological resistance to facts, science, and the notion of trusted sources is so relentless that it's beginning to feel normal. The rising tide of anti-science sentiment is not okay with Bill Nye, whose return to television could not possibly be better timed—or more accurately titled. Premiering next Friday on Netflix, Bill Nye Saves the World is a whole different beast from his beloved 1990s program, Bill Nye the Science Guy.
"It's quite different," Nye told Esquire.com. "This is a talk show, it's not a science primer, so much as a show about topics that have pros and cons from a scientific perspectives. We want you, the viewer, to draw your own conclusions after we present the evidence."
Hosted by Nye alongside a slew of celebrity correspondents and guest—including Karlie Kloss, Zach Braff, and Tim Gunn—the show will employ a mix of monologues, demonstrations and talk-show style debate segments to refute myths and pseudoscience. Here, Nye tells us what to expect and why he thinks his new series is important for viewers of all ages.
Despite the new format, Bill Nye Saves the World is an extension of the Science Guy you know and love.
Who doesn't want his or her own talk show? And a talk show has to be an extension of the host, no matter who it is, or it won't have the kind of authenticity that people want to sit through. So this show is very much an extension of me. We have an opening monologue that often features a science demonstration, which is very much my style. We have a comedy piece, and I did a lot of recorded comedy pieces when I worked in Seattle. And we have a panel of experts, where we really have a debate-style segment.
He's disturbed by the Western world's growing suspicion of facts—evidenced by the anti-"expert" Brexit campaign and the anti-truth Trump campaign.
These days, people are suffering from what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. When you've established a worldview throughout your life—and then you're presented with evidence that contradicts that worldview, or lessens its apparent efficacy—you have to resolve the conflict in your mind, and you can do that either by changing your worldview completely, which is difficult, or by denying the evidence. And one of the best ways to dismiss evidence is to dismiss the experts who are providing it.
Billed as an "anti-anti-science show," each episode of Bill Nye Saves the World will focus on a different anti-scientific claim.
The idea is that these claims are all susceptible to analysis. We have a show on alternative medicine, which is quite literally treatments that aren't medicine; homeopathy being kind of the worst. We found a stomach antacid that has vinegar in it, so it doesn't settle your stomach, it just makes you feel worse, but it's sold in a hippie store and it's full of hippie sounding words, so it looks like it'll work. And then climate change, which is where everybody's in denial in the most inappropriate way.
"One of the best ways to dismiss evidence is to dismiss the experts who are providing it."
In the same vein as schools teaching children how to spot fake news, the show's aim is to instill critical thinking in its viewers.
When I was in school, you had to learn to use the card catalogue in a library to find a book. Now the skill we want to imbue in students, and in everyone, is how to filter information. How to realize that what you're seeing may or may not be true. I believe that Bill Nye Saves the World promotes critical thinking, to the extent that it can. It's a TV show, so it's not asking you questions that you have to respond to, but we try to provide this worldview [that suggests], "Don't believe everything you hear or see, do some research, be diligent."
That Fashion Week appearance with Buzz Aldrin at the Nick Graham show has transformed his personal style.
I met Nick Graham when The Infinite Monkey Cage did a show in New York, in front of a theater audience. We got to talking, and decided to work together on a line of bow ties, which then grew into a line of suits, which then grew into him getting me to be in his fashion show. So in Bill Nye Saves the World, we did 13 episodes, and I wore 13 different Nick Graham suits—not all at the same time. I'm actually wearing a Nick Graham suit right now.
The Trump administration's climate change denial won't last—but we should all be concerned about the damage they can do in four years.
The Environmental Protection Agency was started by a notorious Republican, Richard Nixon, in response to public outcry about pollution here in the United States. And now the current administration has hired a guy who has sued the EPA repeatedly. I don't think that's sustainable—I think that climate change denial with the current administration will run out of gas, pun intended. They won't be able to sustain this worldview, because of the infrastructure that is the EPA, the bureaucracy that is the EPA, and public outcry.
Climate change denial, is almost entirely generational. There's very few young people who are in denial about climate change, so those deniers are gonna age out in a few years. But the trouble with climate change, what makes it different from other social issues, is that the greenhouse gases we put into the air in the next four or eight years are not going away, and they will affect the world's climate for centuries. If you like to worry about things, it's a great time!
Bill Nye Saves the World launches on Netflix on April 21.
Bill Nye Doesn't Have an Opinion. He Has Science.