Bill Nye the “Science Guy”Posted 9 years ago under Uncategorized
William Sanford Nye, popularly known as the Science Guy, is an iconic popular media science educator. Born in 1955, Bill’s mother was a codebreaker during World War II, and his father a World War II veteran and POW who became fascinated with the sundial while held prisoner in Japan. William “Bill” Nye studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and once took an astronomy class taught by Carl Sagan. For years and years, Bill Nye has taken a stance against GMO, educating parents and children alike that genetically modified organisms potentially threaten to alter entire ecosystems and have the potential to kill off entire species of bats and butterflies necessary for crop pollination, per the episode aired on his popular show “The Eyes of Nye.” (1)
In 2007, Bill Nye and Ed Begley, Jr., an environmental activist, competed to see who could have the “lowest carbon footprint.” Then, in 2012, Nye endorsed President Barack Obama’s re-election bid, then in 2015 visited Monsanto headquarters and everything changed. Nye’s stance on GMO turned about-face and he “fell in love” with GMO and the idea of inserting chemical pesticide genes into the seeds of American corn, soy, canola and the like. His new book is now being edited to change his developing stance on GMO, in the face of everything of which he has previously warned his fans and followers.
Nye is also an inventor, who hosted an eight-part award-winning Discovery Channel series called “Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye.” Nye has appeared on numerous talk shows to speak on global warming and even UFO sightings (ie: Roswell and Malmstrom Air Force Base). Nye appears on “The Climate Code” on the Weather Channel and tells the world his personal strategies for saving energy, and Nye has acted along side his fellow tv personality friend and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson himself has been exposed for purporting false theories about GMO and wildy comparing genetic modification to traditional, selective breeding.
April of 2015, Bill Nye visits Monsanto headquarters (2) in St. Louis, MO, and upon returning home, casts revision in his new book, “Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation.” On the show “Real Time with Bill Maher” Nye explains that the revision will occur in the chapter about genetically modified foods. The time he spent with the Monsanto scientists “revised” his outlook. Nye declares his newfound love for GMO now, the same chemical-food he once said could wipe out bats and butterflies, that support more than half of the food system we know. Nye is quoted, “I went to Monsanto and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there and I have revised my outlook … I’m very excited about telling the world … When you’re in love, you want to tell the world.” His new book comes out in the fall of 2015.
The problem with Nye’s 180 degree stance change on GMO is that glyphosate, a main ingredient in Roundup herbicide marketed by Monsanto, was recently implicated as being a possible carcinogen (cancer breeding) chemical by the World Health Organization (WHO). Roundup is the world’s most popular herbicide and is found in and on genetically modified corn and soy, representing 90% of these US crops today. http://www.naturalnews.com/049120_glyphosate_exposure_who_admission_cancer.html
Why would Bill Nye support a cancer-causing chemical that destroys human health and the value of nutrition in America’s soil, when he’s such an avid supporter of the environment and trying to make the smallest carbon footprint possible? Nye used to tell the world that GMOs should be thoroughly tested. He used to speak of the need for food labels declaring GMO. He spoke of GM soybean crops impacting plants, which impacts butterflies that feed on them, which in turn impacts the bats’ food supply, which enables more disease-carrying mosquitoes to multiply uncontrollably, thus affecting human health. Nye is recorded on video saying, “Let’s farm responsibly… require labels on our foods and let’s carefully test these foods case by case.” His newfound partnership with Monsanto is auspicious and suspicious considering his longtime stance against everything genetically modified “Frankenfoods” are doing to cause health and environmental detriment.
Credibility and Popularity – Not to be Confused with the “Science Guy”
Though many of today’s young adults grew up watching some Bill Nye on public access television, when it comes to matters of entire ecosystems, most health and science fans and supporters do not tolerate dishonesty and unproven “technology” that comes in the form of chemicals and that are manufactured and distributed by massive, monopolistic corporations, like Monsanto, Dupont, Dow, Bayer, Syngenta or Cargill. With one in every three Americans getting cancer sometime in their life and half dying from it, and with the latest announcement by WHO that glyphosate is probably cancer-causing, not too many Americans believe they should be eating foods grown with carcinogenic ingredients, inside the seeds and also sprayed heavily on the crops before harvest. Glyphosate has also been exposed in independent research as an endocrine disruptor. (3)
http://www.naturalnews.com/047962_roundup_glyphosate_wheat.html
Yet, Nye takes it a step further in his recent video coverage of GMO, and breeds more confusion by explaining ring-spot virus in papaya and how it’s a good thing for the papaya to be “immune” to diseases or even insects – but what about it’s effect on the humans who eat it? He calls it another “step in the march of agricultural progress” in order to help change his fans’ minds and stance he previously ushered in as the opposite for years and years, only his fans won’t be getting paid millions of dollars by Monsanto.
What happened to Nye’s old stance on GMO?
This Bill Nye quote won’t be found in his new book:
“Let’s say we genetically-modify this corn so that when insects eat it, they die,” states Nye hypothetically, as he stands in a corn field. “Then the wind blows some of the pollen from that corn over here to these weeds, well, they’re really wildflowers. And there are butterflies that rely on these flowers, and they eat some of that pollen, and all the butterflies die.” Today, soy and corn derivatives rooted in GMO appear in thousands of food products and are not labeled as such, like tacos and tortilla and corn chips. You could be serving genetically modified food to your whole family every meal, every day right now if you don’t investigate it, warned Bill Nye once. Even your pets are probably eating GMO. Baby food formulas commonly contain soy. Canola is mostly GMO and appears in most dressings, oils (hybrids) and processed foods. GM corn (plus HFCS and sugar) shows up in just about every popular kid’s cereal and nearly all non-organic snacks, candy and gum.
Like many scientists, though, Nye could be confusing hybridization and cross breeding with GMO for different reasons. What we do know about GMO is that it’s only been around since the mid-1980s. Natural selection, cross-breeding, selective breeding and even artificial breeding are NOT the same thing as inserting pesticide genes into seeds in a laboratory; moreover, mixing synthetic ingredients and DNA from insects with plants would NEVER occur naturally. This is obvious and falls under the umbrella of common sense. But television personalities are misusing their popularity and educational skills in the arena of genetic modification, and the “Science Guy” and Neil deGrasse Tyson are leaving a different kind of “carbon” footprint in the minds of Americans by misrepresenting the dangers of humans consuming pesticides daily.(4)
Could all RDA, recommended daily allowances and nutrition labels be misleading? Bill Nye doesn’t know. What the “Science Guy” does know is that he is now “in love” with GMO and according to Nye, “When you’re in love you want to tell the world.” What Bill Nye injects as “alarmist hype” could be real world scenarios happening now, and the real science is proving that chemical agriculture is threatening entire ecosystems and is not sustainable. This would be a good time for Mr. Nye to use “The Eyes of Nye” to review his own “carbon footprint” and report on real science (5), responsible farming, careful testing of new forms of foods, and very necessary food labeling in the USA.
Sources:
(1) http://www.naturalnews.com/049163_Bill_Nye_GMOs_Monsanto.html#ixzz3cqhxPRhh
(2) http://www.naturalnews.com/049257_Bill_Nye_Monsanto_propaganda_GMOs.html#ixzz3cqhcv6VI
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hjy-CJlzbM
(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z_CqyB1dQo
(5) http://www.naturalnews.com/049063_altered_genes_gmos_biotech.html